Android 8 Features: Might Be called Android Oreo, Come With Picture-In-Picture Mode, Data Throttling And Icon Badges

Google’s next Android operating system (OS) update — Android 8.0 is expected to be launched by October this year, but the company seems to have already started working on the update. Going by Google’s dessert-based nomenclature for its OS updates, the next Android update is expected to be called Android Oreo. The company’s senior vice-president for Android, Hiroshi Lockheimer teased the update on Twitter in February.

Read: Android O Name Teased As Oreo

The next update is expected to bring new features, 9to5Google reported on Saturday. According to the report, Android 8.0 is expected to be a major update bringing new notifications, picture-in-picture mode and more. Since the company’s Android Nougat Developer Preview released in March last year, it is expected to come out with the Android 8.0 Developer Preview soon.

Here are some of the expected features of Android 8.0, according to the report.

Notification changes

Google could change the design of notifications in the upcoming update. The design could actually emerge out of a merger of the Google Project Andromeda and Android OS and the improvements prepared for the shelved project will now be included in Android 8.0. These include:

• Notifications across devices
• Notification presented according to your preferences and usage, using machine-learning processes
• Determination of notifications according to location, time and device used.

Icon badges for apps

In the new update, activation notifications will now have badges to mark them out from other notifications.

Picture-in-picture mode

Post Android 8.0, Android-based smartphones will have a picture-in-picture mode, just like Android T.V

Floating Toolbar for smart text

The new update is expected to make the Google Bar more useful, by introducing a floating toolbar powered by Google Assistant. This along with a Copy Less feature, which automatically sources out relevant information from Google and lets you add it to your conversations will make the search bar much more useful.

Read: Android O: 5 Expected Features

Restricted background activities for apps

This feature will let users save battery and data by cutting off background activities for inactive apps. For example, if you have many tabs opened in Chrome, this feature will make the app inactive to save background data and battery.