1. Google Now on Tap: Users can get assistance without having to leave an app or a website. They only need to touch and hold the home button.
2. Voice power: Users can now have a dialogue with any of their apps that support Android new voice interaction service.
3. Direct Share: A simpler and faster way to share to the right person in the right app.
4. Doze: When an Android 6 device is at rest, Doze automatically puts it into a sleep state to increase standby battery life.
5. App Standby: This restricts battery drain from seldom used apps; App Standby limits their impact on battery life so your charge lasts longer.
6. USB Type C support: This brings in faster data transfer and also faster charging.
7. Permissions: On Android Marshmallow devices, apps designed for Android Marshmallow only ask for permission right when it's needed. Users can deny any permission and still continue to use the app.
8. Advanced permission control: This adds ability to turn permissions on or off for all installed apps.
9. Verified boot: Wne an Android device boots up, it will warn users if the firmware and Android operating system have been modified from the factory version.
10. Fingerprint sensors: Android M brings in the ability to sse fingerprint sensors to unlock the device, make purchases in Google Play, authenticate transactions in apps, and pay in stores.
11. Android Runtime: Improved application performance and lower memory overhead for faster multi-tasking.
12. Bluetooth stylus support: Including pressure sensitivity and modifier keys.
13. Text improvements: Improved typesetting and text rendering performance. Smarter text selection, built-in undo/redo, and text actions closer to your fingers.
14. Quick translate: Text selection actions such as a new Translate option that lets you translate text from one language to another right on the spot. This feature requires Google Translate app installed.
15. Duplex printing support: Save paper by printing on both sides.
16: App links: Enables installed apps to automatically handle their web URLs so you can jump right into the app, rather than the mobile web site, as appropriate.
17. Simpler DND: Quick toggle and configure Do Not Disturb from quick settings.
18. Intelligent DND: If someone calls you twice within 15 minutes, you can choose to allow the call to ring through while Do Not Disturb is enabled.
19. Automatic rules: Use automatic rules to enable Do Not Disturb for as many custom time blocks as you like or around events on your calendar.
20. Simplified volume controls: This allows users to manage notification, music, and alarm volumes with the volume keys.
21. Streamlined Settings: To let users manage an app's settings all in one place, from battery and memory usage, to notifications and permissions controls.
22. Refreshed Google Now Launcher: The app list includes search, fast alphabetic scrolling, and predictive App Suggestions.
23. BLE: More power efficient Bluetooth Low Energy for scanning for nearby beacons and your accessories.
24. Hotspot 2.0: Connect to compatible WiFi networks seamlessly and securely.
25. Bluetooth SAP: Make calls from your carphone using your phone's SIM.
26. New frequencies: Portable WiFi hotspot now supports 5GHz frequency bands.
27. Flex Storage: This makes using SD cards or external storage devices as encrypted expanded storage for your apps and games on Android Marshmallow easier.
28. Improved transfer: Easily transfer your accounts, apps and data to a new device.
29. Additional account support: During setup, you can add an additional personal or corporate email account (eg, IMAP)
30. Auto backup for Apps: App data backup and restore.
31. Backup/restore of additional system settings: Such as Sync settings, preferred apps, Do Not Disturb settings, Accessibility settings and enabled IMEs.
32. MIDI support: Create, consume, and perform music using your Android device with USB MIDI devices, MIDI over BLE, and software-based MIDI devices.
33. New languages: Android is now available more than 70 languages with 6 new additions: Azerbaijani, Gujarati, Kazakh, Albanian, Urdu, and Uzbek.
34. Android for Work improvements: When receiving calls or viewing past messages, you can now see the full work contact details even if you’re not logged into your work profile.
35. Work status notification: A status bar briefcase icon now appears when you are using an app from the work profile and if the device is unlocked directly to an app in the work profile, an alert is displayed notifying the user.
Fingerprint Authentication
This release offers new APIs to let you authenticate users by using their fingerprint scans on supported devices, Use these APIs in conjunction with the
Android Keystore system.
To authenticate users via fingerprint scan, get an instance of the new
FingerprintManager class and call the
authenticate() method. Your app must be running on a compatible device with a fingerprint sensor. You must implement the user interface for the fingerprint authentication flow on your app, and use the standard Android fingerprint icon in your UI. The Android fingerprint icon (
c_fp_40px.png) is included in the
Fingerprint Dialog sample. If you are developing multiple apps that use fingerprint authentication, note that each app must authenticate the user’s fingerprint independently.
To use this feature in your app, first add the
USE_FINGERPRINT permission in your manifest.
<uses-permission
android:name="android.permission.USE_FINGERPRINT" />
If you are testing this feature, follow these steps:
- Install Android SDK Tools Revision 24.3, if you have not done so.
- Enroll a new fingerprint in the emulator by going to Settings > Security > Fingerprint, then follow the enrollment instructions.
- Use an emulator to emulate fingerprint touch events with the following command. Use the same command to emulate fingerprint touch events on the lockscreen or in your app.
adb -e emu finger touch <finger_id>
On Windows, you may have to run telnet 127.0.0.1 <emulator-id> followed by finger touch <finger_id>.
Confirm Credential
Your app can authenticate users based on how recently they last unlocked their device. This feature frees users from having to remember additional app-specific passwords, and avoids the need for you to implement your own authentication user interface. Your app should use this feature in conjunction with a public or secret key implementation for user authentication.
Avoid showing the re-authentication dialog excessively -- your apps should try using the cryptographic object first and if the the timeout expires, use the
createConfirmDeviceCredentialIntent() method to re-authenticate the user within your app.
App Linking
This release enhances Android’s intent system by providing more powerful app linking. This feature allows you to associate an app with a web domain you own. Based on this association, the platform can determine the default app to use to handle a particular web link and skip prompting users to select an app. To learn how to implement this feature, see
Handling App Links.
Auto Backup for Apps
The system now performs automatic full data backup and restore for apps. Your app must target Android 6.0 (API level 23) to enable this behavior; you do not need to add any additional code. If users delete their Google accounts, their backup data is deleted as well. To learn how this feature works and how to configure what to back up on the file system, see
Configuring Auto Backup for Apps.
Direct Share
This release provides you with APIs to make sharing intuitive and quick for users. You can now define direct share targets that launch a specific activity in your app. These direct share targets are exposed to users via the Share menu. This feature allows users to share content to targets, such as contacts, within other apps. For example, the direct share target might launch an activity in another social network app, which lets the user share content directly to a specific friend or community in that app.
<service android:name=".ChooserTargetService"
android:label="@string/service_name"
android:permission="android.permission.BIND_CHOOSER_TARGET_SERVICE">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.service.chooser.ChooserTargetService" />
</intent-filter>
</service>
For each activity that you want to expose to
ChooserTargetService, add a
<meta-data> element with the name
"android.service.chooser.chooser_target_service" in your app manifest.
<activity android:name=".MyShareActivity”
android:label="@string/share_activity_label">
<intent-filter>
<action android:name="android.intent.action.SEND" />
</intent-filter>
<meta-data
android:name="android.service.chooser.chooser_target_service"
android:value=".ChooserTargetService" />
</activity>
Voice Interactions
This release provides a new voice interaction API which, together with
Voice Actions, allows you to build conversational voice experiences into your apps. Call the
isVoiceInteraction() method to determine if a voice action triggered your activity. If so, your app can use the
VoiceInteractor class to request a voice confirmation from the user, select from a list of options, and more.
Most voice interactions originate from a user voice action. A voice interaction activity can also, however, start without user input. For example, another app launched through a voice interaction can also send an intent to launch a voice interaction. To determine if your activity launched from a user voice query or from another voice interaction app, call the
isVoiceInteractionRoot() method. If another app launched your activity, the method returns
false. Your app may then prompt the user to confirm that they intended this action.
Assist API
This release offers a new way for users to engage with your apps through an assistant. To use this feature, the user must enable the assistant to use the current context. Once enabled, the user can summon the assistant within any app, by long-pressing on the Home button.
Your app can elect to not share the current context with the assistant by setting the
FLAG_SECURE flag. In addition to the standard set of information that the platform passes to the assistant, your app can share additional information by using the new
AssistContent class.
To provide the assistant with additional context from your app, follow these steps:
- Implement the
Application.OnProvideAssistDataListener interface.
- Register this listener by using
registerOnProvideAssistDataListener().
- In order to provide activity-specific contextual information, override the
onProvideAssistData() callback and, optionally, the new onProvideAssistContent() callback.
Adoptable Storage Devices
With this release, users can
adopt external storage devices such as SD cards. Adopting an external storage device encrypts and formats the device to behave like internal storage. This feature allows users to move both apps and private data of those apps between storage devices. When moving apps, the system respects the
android:installLocationpreference in the manifest.
If your app accesses the following APIs or fields, be aware that the file paths they return will dynamically change when the app is moved between internal and external storage devices. When building file paths, it is strongly recommended that you always call these APIs dynamically. Don’t use hardcoded file paths or persist fully-qualified file paths that were built previously.
To debug this feature, you can enable adoption of a USB drive that is connected to an Android device through a USB On-The-Go (OTG) cable, by running this command:
$ adb shell sm set-force-adoptable true
Notifications
This release adds the following API changes for notifications:
Bluetooth Stylus Support
This release provides improved support for user input using a Bluetooth stylus. Users can pair and connect a compatible Bluetooth stylus with their phone or tablet. While connected, position information from the touch screen is fused with pressure and button information from the stylus to provide a greater range of expression than with the touch screen alone. Your app can listen for stylus button presses and perform secondary actions, by registering
View.OnContextClickListener and
GestureDetector.OnContextClickListener objects in your activity.
Use the
MotionEvent methods and constants to detect stylus button interactions:
Improved Bluetooth Low Energy Scanning
If your app performs performs Bluetooth Low Energy scans, use the new
setCallbackType() method to specify that you want the system to notify callbacks when it first finds, or sees after a long time, an advertisement packet matching the set
ScanFilter. This approach to scanning is more power-efficient than what’s provided in the previous platform version.
Hotspot 2.0 Release 1 Support
4K Display Mode
The platform now allows apps to request that the display resolution be upgraded to 4K rendering on compatible hardware. To query the current physical resolution, use the new
Display.Mode APIs. If the UI is drawn at a lower logical resolution and is upscaled to a larger physical resolution, be aware that the physical resolution the
getPhysicalWidth() method returns may differ from the logical resolution reported by
getSize().
You can request the system to change the physical resolution in your app as it runs, by setting the
preferredDisplayModeId property of your app’s window. This feature is useful if you want to switch to 4K display resolution. While in 4K display mode, the UI continues to be rendered at the original resolution (such as 1080p) and is upscaled to 4K, but
SurfaceView objects may show content at the native resolution.
Themeable ColorStateLists
Audio Features
This release adds enhancements to audio processing on Android, including:
- Support for the MIDI protocol, with the new
android.media.midi APIs. Use these APIs to send and receive MIDI events.
- New
AudioRecord.Builder and AudioTrack.Builder classes to create digital audio capture and playback objects respectively, and configure audio source and sink properties to override the system defaults.
- API hooks for associating audio and input devices. This is particularly useful if your app allows users to start a voice search from a game controller or remote control connected to Android TV. The system invokes the new
onSearchRequested() callback when the user starts a search. To determine if the user's input device has a built-in microphone, retrieve the InputDevice object from that callback, then call the new hasMicrophone() method.
- New
getDevices() method which lets you retrieve a list of all audio devices currently connected to the system. You can also register an AudioDeviceCallback object if you want the system to notify your app when an audio device connects or disconnects.
Video Features
This release adds new capabilities to the video processing APIs, including:
- New
MediaSync class which helps applications to synchronously render audio and video streams. The audio buffers are submitted in non-blocking fashion and are returned via a callback. It also supports dynamic playback rate.
- New
EVENT_SESSION_RECLAIMED event, which indicates that a session opened by the app has been reclaimed by the resource manager. If your app uses DRM sessions, you should handle this event and make sure not to use a reclaimed session.
- New
ERROR_RECLAIMED error code, which indicates that the resource manager reclaimed the media resource used by the codec. With this exception, the codec must be released, as it has moved to terminal state.
- New
getMaxSupportedInstances() interface to get a hint for the max number of the supported concurrent codec instances.
- New
setPlaybackParams() method to set the media playback rate for fast or slow motion playback. It also stretches or speeds up the audio playback automatically in conjunction with the video.
Camera Features
This release includes the following new APIs for accessing the camera’s flashlight and for camera reprocessing of images:
Flashlight API
If a camera device has a flash unit, you can call the
setTorchMode() method to switch the flash unit’s torch mode on or off without opening the camera device. The app does not have exclusive ownership of the flash unit or the camera device. The torch mode is turned off and becomes unavailable whenever the camera device becomes unavailable, or when other camera resources keeping the torch on become unavailable. Other apps can also call
setTorchMode() to turn off the torch mode. When the last app that turned on the torch mode is closed, the torch mode is turned off.
You can register a callback to be notified about torch mode status by calling the
registerTorchCallback() method. The first time the callback is registered, it is immediately called with the torch mode status of all currently known camera devices with a flash unit. If the torch mode is turned on or off successfully, the
onTorchModeChanged() method is invoked.
Reprocessing API
Use the
ImageWriter class to connect the input buffer flow to the camera reprocessing input. To get an empty buffer, follow this programming model:
- Call the
dequeueInputImage() method.
- Fill the data into the input buffer.
- Send the buffer to the camera by calling the
queueInputImage() method.
The
ImageReader class now supports
PRIVATE format image streams. This support allows your app to maintain a circular image queue of
ImageReader output images, select one or more images, and send them to the
ImageWriterfor camera reprocessing.
Android for Work Features
This release includes the following new APIs for Android for Work:
- Enhanced controls for Corporate-Owned, Single-Use devices: The Device Owner can now control the following settings to improve management of Corporate-Owned, Single-Use (COSU) devices:
- Silent install and uninstall of apps by Device Owner: A Device Owner can now silently install and uninstall applications using the
PackageInstaller APIs, independent of Google Play for Work. You can now provision devices through a Device Owner that fetches and installs apps without user interaction. This feature is useful for enabling one-touch provisioning of kiosks or other such devices without activating a Google account.
- Silent enterprise certificate access: When an app calls
choosePrivateKeyAlias(), prior to the user being prompted to select a certificate, the Profile or Device Owner can now call the onChoosePrivateKeyAlias() method to provide the alias silently to the requesting application. This feature lets you grant managed apps access to certificates without user interaction.
- Auto-acceptance of system updates. By setting a system update policy with
setSystemUpdatePolicy(), a Device Owner can now auto-accept a system update, for instance in the case of a kiosk device, or postpone the update and prevent it being taken by the user for up to 30 days. Furthermore, an administrator can set a daily time window in which an update must be taken, for example during the hours when a kiosk device is not in use. When a system update is available, the system checks if the Work Policy Controller app has set a system update policy, and behaves accordingly.
- Delegated certificate installation: A Profile or Device Owner can now grant a third-party app the ability to call these
DevicePolicyManager certificate management APIs:
- Data usage tracking. A Profile or Device Owner can now query for the data usage statistics visible in Settings > Data usage by using the new
NetworkStatsManager methods. Profile Owners are automatically granted permission to query data on the profile they manage, while Device Owners get access to usage data of the managed primary user.
- Runtime permission management:
A Profile or Device Owner can set a permission policy for all runtime requests of all applications using
setPermissionPolicy(), to either prompt the user to grant the permission or automatically grant or deny the permission silently. If the latter policy is set, the user cannot modify the selection made by the Profile or Device Owner within the app’s permissions screen in
Settings.
- VPN in Settings: VPN apps are now visible in Settings > More > VPN. Additionally, the notifications that accompany VPN usage are now specific to how that VPN is configured. For Profile Owner, the notifications are specific to whether the VPN is configured for a managed profile, a personal profile, or both. For a Device Owner, the notifications are specific to whether the VPN is configured for the entire device.
- Work status notification: A status bar briefcase icon now appears whenever an app from the managed profile has an activity in the foreground. Furthermore, if the device is unlocked directly to the activity of an app in the managed profile, a toast is displayed notifying the user that they are within the work profile.
