Android N Developer Preview: One month in

[James Falconer]

So - we've had the Android N Dev Preview for almost one month now... how goes it? Overall what are your impressions? What would you change/fix? How's battery life? Any popular and useful apps that are not playing nicely?

 

[Aquila]

I'm not even going to say "for being a beta" here. There are a couple of bugs, but overall this has been a very smooth experience on all of my devices. I currently have it installed on my Pixel C, Nexus 9, Nexus 6, Nexus 6P and my new Nexus 5X - and it's not flawless, but it's pretty close to ready for prime time in a lot of ways.

On battery life, it seems like it idles better than on M but the screen/processor tasks (so using it) drains the battery faster than it did. That said, not one of those devices has any issue making all through the day even with N, so ... can't complain?

 

[anon(9072051)]

On battery life, it seems like it idles better than on M but the screen/processor tasks (so using it) drains the battery faster than it did.

^^ Absolutely agree with this. I typically ended each day at about 70% battery on MM; I'm more likely to end up in the high 50s with N. Still, I'd trade the weaker battery stats for the N notifications any day! They seem to sync up remarkably well with the Gapps, especially Gmail. They saved me from late charges twice this month.

Overall: I can't wait to see what the next update will bring. I started this month with audio problems during incoming calls, but calls have been clear and rock solid for the past week and a half. I have a lot more faith in the preview now as daily driver software. I haven't fired up the MM phone in 10 days.

Change/fix: Instead of simply turning BT on or off from the notification shade, I always end up on the BT settings page, even though a press on the shade will have already turned BT on. A minor kink, but irritating. The handoffs between cellular and WiFi Calling (on TMo) are still pretty rough, too. It sometimes takes multiple restarts or Airplane mode togglings to force that handoff; sometimes turning Bluetooth either on or off can also enable the switch. All in all, I'm hoping the radios get some fiune tuning over the next couple of months.

Bratty Apps: Only Keep + Swiftkey in combination have consistently locked up & crashed for me.

Qualification: I ain't no power user; your mileage may vary.

 

[jaltman]

Battery life inefficiency was noted in the release notes, so I look forward to improvements, but my over all experience is quite positive. Did anyone actually see a mid-month OTA update? I heard about one, but never saw it. My Nexus 9 wont shutdown correctly, but see many bug reports on it, so hope they fix that in the next one.

 

[anon(9072051)]

Did anyone actually see a mid-month OTA update?

I think that was only for the 2015 Nexus products, or maybe just the 6P.