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Introduction
Twelve months have passed since the introduction of Android 7.0 Nougat, and you know what that means - a new, even sweeter release of Google's mobile operating system is out. With Oreo we're treated to the second ever co-branding exercise for an Android version, following in the footsteps of KitKat from a few years ago. While it may have been officially revealed during a rare event (the total solar eclipse on August 21), Oreo doesn't come with huge changes compared to its predecessor - at least not any that are immediately obvious to the user.
Underneath the just slightly tweaked UI elements, however, sits Project Treble - which is basically a revolution in the way the OS is built, and may result in longer software support windows than what we've gotten used to from Android device makers. Then again, promises of faster updates have burned us before, so we're a bit wary of believing update-related claims before we actually see any of them becoming reality.
As usual with reviews of big new Android releases, what we're talking about here is the unadulterated Oreo experience that's currently available for Google's Pixels and Nexuses. These have all started to receive updates to the new version, and 2017's Pixels will run the new OS from day one.
If the smartphone you own isn't a Pixel or Nexus, then some (or many) of the aesthetic changes introduced in Oreo may not make it to your particular handset or tablet, because they could get lost in its manufacturer's need to skin things one way or another. Furthermore, you're going to have to wait, and we're talking months here, for Oreo to reach you. This is how things have always been in the Android world, and at this point we've given up hope that any of this will ever change. So if you want to be among the first to receive new OS versions as they come out of Google's oven, you need to buy a Pixel.
Key upgrades over Nougat
- Picture-in-Picture mode for videos (and even maps), which can run in a small, moveable window on top of anything else;
- Completely reorganized Settings menu, with the aim of making the various options much easier for novices and average users to navigate (although this may result in certain frustrations for power users);
- Twice faster boot times;
- Background execution and location limits keep rogue apps in check, not allowing them to drain your battery by running, using data, or constantly asking for your location when they're not in the foreground;</h3>
- Notification categories give you more granular control over what you see from each app;
- Notification snoozing is very welcome;
- Dots introduce a new way to manage notifications;</h3>
- Autofill framework lets third party services (as well as Google itself) remember your logins for apps and seamlessly offer to fill them in when needed;
- Project Treble is the biggest ever change to the foundations of Android - a modular architecture that in theory should make it easier and faster for device makers to deliver software updates for longer;
- Redesigned Ambient screen shows notifications with larger font, highlighting the name of the app generating each one, and giving you immediate access to quick actions;
- Fully redesigned emoji lose the controversial 'blob' design for a look that's more similar to those designed by other companies in the mobile space;
- Smart text selection automatically recognizes phone numbers, addresses, and links, and lets you quickly act upon them.
What we’re still missing
- A dark theme, which is especially baffling given Google's love of OLED panels for its devices (which would save power when paired with a dark or black UI);
- A theming engine while we're on this subject - personalization is something a lot of people like about Android, but there's just one Google-imposed stock look and you have to live with it if you want a Pixel;
- A way to customize the navigation bar buttons - they are software-rendered, so the ability to move them around to one's liking, or add more buttons to the bar, or remove some, or even choose between a few different designs should be very easy to implement but Google is still resisting;
- A way to customize the lock screen shortcuts;
- A redesign of the Google Now Feed, which is accessed by swiping right from the leftmost home screen in the Pixel Launcher; Google has been experimenting with a new look for this part of the UI (that's getting really stale), but it's still not rolled out globally;
- Google Lens - announced at the I/O conference earlier this year, it will probably arrive on the next-gen Pixels first; it's going to let your camera 'understand' what it's looking at, leveraging Google's computer vision and artificial intelligence tech.
You may be among the lucky few who own a phone or tablet that's already received its update to Android 8.0 Oreo. Or you could be anxiously waiting for your device's manufacturer to deliver this OS version to you. In either case, you're welcome to join us in the following pages where we shall perform an in-depth exploration of what you can expect to get from Google's latest tasty treat.
Look and feel
You can't really say that there's a big difference in this area between the new Android release and Nougat, but there are some notable changes nevertheless. Perhaps the most obvious one has to do with the Quick Settings area, and specifically its background color. This is now a light grey, which blends in much better with other UI elements such as the Settings menu.
Subjectively, it feels more professional-looking than the dark grey of years past, but the fact that the Quick Settings icons themselves are now black when the function they depict is enabled will take a little bit of getting used to. The battery percentage is now shown to the left of the battery icon in the status bar, not inside it, greatly improving readability.
New background color for Quick Settings
Upon the initial swipe down from the top you'll notice that the date has been moved under the row of six most used Quick Settings icons, to the left. At the same level, on the right is where the Settings shortcut now lives, and to the right of that there's a small arrow that will expand the entire Quick Settings area when tapped. Of course, you can still accomplish the same effect by simply swiping down again.
While you're there, you'll see that the Edit shortcut for rearranging Quick Settings tiles has appeared just to the left of the Settings gear, and to the left of that is a handy user selector which lets you pick from the defined ones and guest mode, also allowing for the quick addition of a new user.
On Google's Pixels you have the same Pixel Launcher greeting you on your home screen as before, since this is an app that gets updated through the Play Store, independently of Android releases. Likewise you're stuck with the ancient Google Now Launcher on the Nexuses that will receive Oreo. We'll focus on the Pixel Launcher here because it's the newer (and still updated) app.
Lock screen • Google Now Feed • Home screen • App drawer
While it may not have been upgraded by Oreo per se, the new OS version brings a new launcher-related feature - namely notification dots - and this is obviously supported in Google's own Pixel Launcher. More on this in the next page of the review, which is all about notifications.
A couple of other subtle changes have been enabled in the Pixel Launcher on Oreo: when you're in the app drawer, the navigation buttons turn black, and you can now swipe up anywhere on the homescreen to bring up the app drawer - you no longer have to 'grab' the app dock at the bottom to achieve this effect.
Widget button on long press • Widget selector for each app
If you like widgets, you'll be happy to know that you no longer have to scroll through endless lists of those in order to get to the one you want - in Oreo if you long press an app's icon you can then choose to see only that app's widgets by tapping a new button that's to the left of the Info icon. Adding widgets to the home screen in this manner has the potential to be much faster than the older method of long pressing an empty area (which still works, by the way).
Ambient screen
The lock screen hasn't changed, but the Ambient screen has been redesigned. This comes to life whenever you get a new notification or when you pick up your device, provided that you have enabled one or both of those functions in Settings first. As always, it only lights up a fraction of the pixels, taking advantage of the fact that OLED screens don't use any power to display black.
The new Ambient screen implementation shows you each incoming notification in a larger font. It also highlights the name of the app that generated said notification, and puts quick action buttons front and center. So when you receive an email, for example, you just tap on Reply once and then the screen is automagically unlocked and you're taken straight to your email client where you can immediately start writing that reply. It's a much more efficient way to do things, especially if you like acting upon notifications as they arrive. The old Ambient screen basically emulated the lock screen, forcing you to first expand a new notification before you could act on it.
New Ambient screen: When you double tap to wake • When you get a new notification
It's worth noting that when you double tap to wake the screen (or when you pick up your phone) you will see a minimal version of the Ambient screen, which only displays the time and the icons of the apps you've received notifications from. You need to then double tap again to be taken to the lock screen.
Notification dots
If you're using stock Android and have been envious of those notification badges that show up on top of app icons in iOS, worry no more for there's a somewhat similar feature built into Oreo. It's called Notification dots, and is really self-descriptive. Note however that the developer of your favorite launcher needs to add support for showing these dots. As mentioned before, Google's Pixel Launcher obviously has that covered.
Google's notification dots are circles like Apple's notification badges, and they too show up in the top right of an app icon, but that's where the similarities with the iOS system end. Android's dots depict the fact that you have one or more notifications from the app in question, not that there is unread stuff waiting for you inside said app. There's no number displayed, and the dots are tied to what's shown in the notification area. If you swipe to dismiss a notification in the notification area, the corresponding dot on top of that app will disappear. Each dot has a unique color that's automatically generated by the OS based on the hues in the app's icon.
Notification dot on Gmail • Notification content shown upon long press
Handily, if you long-press the icon of an app that has a notification dot showing, you won't just see the available app shortcuts (which you can add to your home screen). Instead, the actual notifications generated by that app are shown, and you can even swipe away every individual item in order to dismiss it. Needless to say, this instantly syncs with the state of the notification area. You can enable or disable notification dots OS-wide, or inside a specific launcher, or even on a per-app basis.
Notification categories
Also known as Notification channels, this feature lets app developers specify different categories for the notifications they can generate. When you encounter an app that has this function, you'll be able to 'subscribe' to specific notification categories only. So you no longer have to go all-in with notifications, either having them on or off for every app. Of course even up until this point many apps have allowed more granular control of which notifications you want to see - but with Notification channels, we get a standardized (and OS-level) system for that.
As with a lot of new features in Android, however, whether this truly takes off or not is entirely up to the number of app developers that will want to use it. We should also note that this feature goes against what Google's done in other parts of Oreo (the Settings menu comes to mind), where a big focus seems to be appealing to average users. With Notification channels, things could quickly get quite complicated to manage.
Individually toggleable notification categories for Google Allo
You can edit the notification categories you subscribe to for a specific app in its info listing in Settings, or by long pressing any notification from that app and going to "All categories".
Notification snoozing
This is definitely not a complex feature (not in concept and not to use), but it does come in handy many times.
Notification snoozing
To use it, you swipe a notification only a little to the left or right. Then choose the clock-like icon and you can set a snoozing period - 15 or 30 minutes, one or two hours. That's it. After the set amount of time passes, the notification will 'magically' reappear, complete with sound and vibration (if either or both of those are on at that moment).
New persistent notifications
Starting in Oreo, if you have apps running in the background, a new persistent notification will show up telling you about the culprits. You can not entirely get rid of it, unfortunately. It can be snoozed (for up to two hours like any other notification), but it's impossible to dismiss. This will surely anger a lot of people, and we assume that Google's intention here is to annoy them so much that they'll decide to write to the developers of the apps behaving in this way to urge them to adhere to Oreo's guidelines regarding background execution limits (see page 6 of this review for more on that).
"Apps running in background" notification and how to get rid of it
Until Google realizes that displaying such a persistent notification isn't very user-friendly, what you can do is change its priority by long pressing the notification, going to "All Categories", then choosing the "Apps running in background" category, and switching "Importance" to "Low". This will hide the notification's icon, so at least it won't constantly take up space in your status bar for no good reason.
"Displaying over other apps" notification • Tapping on it lets you turn off the function for that app
Note that you get a persistent notification for apps that are currently drawing over other apps too. Facebook Messenger's Chat Heads feature will trigger this, as will 'link bubble' type browsers such as Flynx. You can get rid of this particular notification if you long press it, dive into "All Categories", then turn it off for each app that was ever in this situation - look for the handy list of those in the "Display over other apps" section that appears.
Reorganized and redesigned Settings
This area has seen a slight redesign (since Google apparently loves doing that every year), becoming a lot more grey and less blue than before. What's most important is that the entire menu has been completely reorganized. The navigation drawer introduced in Nougat is dead, as is the Support tab (this has been moved into the main list). We doubt that anyone will miss either of these.
The top part of Settings still shows the status of Do Not Disturb mode (if it's on), along with Suggestions for you - these range from mildly interesting to entirely useless, though thankfully that section can be disabled.
Reorganized Settings, with "Advanced" drop down in some places
The top level list of Settings has way less items than before, since a lot of stuff that was previously here has been moved into subcategories. However, this has resulted in a dramatic scaling back of the amount of details shown at a glance in the top level list - the only things you can now see here that don't require additional taps are how much battery you have left, how much storage is unused, and the name of the current user. Gone is the information about the state of individual connectivity options, your ringer volume setting, or the amount of RAM used, for example. This is a tradeoff, sure, but with the lower number of top level options the Settings menu is now more friendly towards novices than it's ever been.
Because of the moving around of the various entries, the second text row for each top level Settings item now usually tells you more about what to expect once you tap - the "Network & Internet" section contains "Wi-Fi, mobile, data usage, hotspot" settings as you can see.
Once you enter certain second-level Settings lists, you may find that only a few options are available right away, with more hidden under an "Advanced" drop
New battery stats
Once you dig deeper into the various settings, you'll notice new ways of showing things. Take the Battery section. This now has a big graphic up top that tells you the percentage left and how long this is expected to last you. You also get at a glance info about when the last full charge was and how much screen on time you've had since then.
Below that there are a few switches related to this section: the Battery saver feature is here, as is the toggle to show the percentage in the status bar. Just for redundancy's sake, the Battery menu contains a switch for Adaptive brightness as well as Sleep settings - both also found within the Display menu. It wouldn't be Android, after all, if it didn't give you a dozen different ways to perform an action - or, in this particular case, show you the same options in many different parts of the UI.
New Battery menu: Big glanceable info • New "App usage" list • Old "Device usage" list can be brought back
The way battery stats are displayed has changed in Oreo, now defaulting to an App usage list. As its name implies, this only shows which apps have been depleting your cell. None of the battery-draining system functions are to be found here (think of the infamous Android OS, Android System, Google Play Services, or even Bluetooth and Phone Idle).
If you hate the new arrangement and absolutely must be outraged at how much battery those vague Android OS and Android System entries eat up, the good news for you is that the old way of showing battery stats is easily reinstated - just choose "Show full device usage" from the tree dots menu in the top right.
Google Play Protect
This security feature was launched a few weeks prior to Oreo's final release. While it's not limited to the latest version of the OS, in Android 8.0 Google Play Protect is a prominent member of the Security & Location menu in Settings.
Google Play Protect is in Settings > Security & Location
Play Protect periodically scans the apps you have installed and checks your device for harmful behavior. If any security risks are found, you will be notified. Through the new Settings item you get at a glance information about any problems (or lack thereof), and you can turn the scanning on and off too (though it's obviously recommended to leave it on). Additionally, if you want you can enable sending unknown apps to Google for better detection of harmful behavior.
Smart text selection
When you select a phone number, address, or link in Oreo you are able to immediately jump into the relevant app. So, if what you've selected is a phone number, a shortcut to the Phone app will automatically appear. Tap that and you're instantly taken to the it to call said number.
Smart text selection recognizes addresses, phone numbers, and links, with one-tap access to the relevant app
Similarly, for addresses you can jump straight to Google Maps for more information or to start navigation. No more copying and pasting of such entries. The same goes for links - select one and you'll get a choice to open it in your default web browser.
Picture-in-Picture
Technically this isn't a new feature, as it's been built into Nougat, but only for Android TV. With Oreo, though, it's available for every device out there, phones and tablets included. As you'd imagine, it works best with video playback and video chat, but certain apps not focused on videos support it too (Google Maps, for example).
Picture-in-Picture mode with a Vimeo video in Chrome
To go into Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode with a video, you start playing it in fullscreen and then hit the home button. Once you've done that, the video is relegated to a small, moveable window that is displayed on top of everything else. You can then keep watching said video while going about doing other things on your phone or tablet, and when you've had enough you simply drag the window down to dismiss it. In case you were wondering - yes, you can use split-screen multitasking and PiP at the same time.
Do other stuff while the PiP window is active • Dismiss the window by dragging down • PiP and split-screen multitasking at the same time
You're probably expecting YouTube to be the prime candidate for PiP usage, but there's a huge caveat. You can only put videos in PiP mode from the YouTube app if you subscribe to YouTube Red, the premium ad-free tier that is still only available in a grand total of five countries. If you don't pay for Red, you simply won't get PiP functionality inside the YouTube app at all. A workaround involving the YouTube website in Chrome used to work but doesn't anymore. Speaking of which, PiP in Chrome is compatible in theory with any video on any website other than YouTube, but remember to go fullscreen before hitting the home button.
PiP in Google Maps when navigating somewhere
In Google Maps, once you have entered navigation mode, you can hit the home button and the app's UI will switch to a PiP window, still displaying information about your next turn and ETA, while showing as much of the map as possible in such a small space.
Autofill framework
If you've ever used a web browser on a computer you probably understand the concept of autofilling online forms - with usernames and passwords, yes, but also other information (addresses, credit card numbers, and so on). With Android 8.0, Google is bringing such possibilities to the OS level. So in Oreo, you don't just get autofill abilities in Chrome - you can in fact use autofill for apps.
For example, let's say you've stored your Twitter username and password in Chrome on your desktop (and have syncing enabled). Then you install the Twitter app on your Android phone. When it comes time to sign into that, Google's autofill service will conveniently ask you if you want it to use the already stored username and password. If so, it will do its magic - and you won't have to type in anything. Similarly, when you log into a new app on your Android device you'll be asked if those details should be saved for later use. Remember - this happens inside any app, not just the web browser of your choice.
Autofill framework used to suggest and fill in usernames and passwords when logging into apps
Since this is an API, third parties will be able to tap into it. So if you don't want your usernames and passwords stored by Google, you'll be able to choose a service such as LastPass for the same purpose.
Redesigned emoji
For quite a while, the default emoji set in Android has had a weird blob-like format, unlike any other mainstream emoji design. Some loved that for its uniqueness, others hated it for how different it was, but none of that matters now because the blob emoji have been killed by Google in Oreo.
The entire emoji stack has undergone a redesign, with circle-based faces. Although they still don't look identical to what other companies are doing, Android emoji are now a lot more similar to other designs. In addition to the redesign, over 60 entirely new emoji have been added to Android 8.0.
While the new look does help with usability somewhat, the emoji situation overall is still a mess since there isn't a standard design across apps and platforms - even on Android, some chat apps use their own icons. Not to mention that quite a few Android device makers have a propensity for coming up with their own designs that replace the default set. And of course other mobile operating systems each have their own interpretations.
Background execution limits
With every new Android release comes a new feature aimed at improving battery life, and Oreo is not different. Thankfully though, this year we're not getting yet another iteration of Doze. Instead, background limits make Android behave more like iOS in one particular area. In theory, at least.
Background execution limits ensure that rogue apps won't eat up your entire battery in a few hours, by doing too many things in the background when you're not actively using them. As a consequence, performance for low-end devices shouldn't degrade as badly when you're multitasking.
It all sounds nice enough, but there's a huge catch. By default, background execution limits are only enabled for apps that target Android 8.0. If a developer wants to get around this, their apps simply need to target a lower version of Android, and that's it - said apps will still be able to do as much background stuff as before. Since apps can be uploaded to the Play Store even if they don't target Oreo, this is a bit of a blunt knife for now.
Manually turning background activity on/off
There is a workaround for apps that don't target Android 8.0, however. If you find that one of your apps is misbehaving while it's in the background, but you don't want to uninstall it, you can manually enforce background execution limits on it through the Battery menu in Settings. The option to turn off background activity is placed in a way that lets you immediately take action if you see an app that you haven't actively used showing up in the battery stats.
Background location limits
In a similar fashion to background execution limits, Oreo wants to help your battery life by limiting how often any app can ask for your location. Actively locating you is one of the most battery-consuming things a phone can do, since by default it uses the GPS as well as Wi-Fi, mobile and Bluetooth radios. So naturally if an app keeps asking for your location over and over again, your battery level will go down the drain quickly.
In Oreo, apps can receive location updates only a few times per hour while they're in the background. The foreground app behavior is the same as in Android 7.1. Unlike background execution limits, the location limits are automatically enforced in Oreo for every single app, no exceptions.
Project Treble
Here's an Android-related truism: if you're interested in keeping your software up-to-date and you don't own a Pixel or Nexus device, you're probably annoyed by how slowly your device's maker is pushing new OS versions to you. Even if you do have one of Google's devices, if you'd like software support for big updates to extend past the current two-year window, you're out of luck. Project Treble could change all of that. Huge emphasis on 'could'.
This is definitely not the first time Google promises swifter updates, and we've been burned many times before so we're taking a cautious approach to Treble. However, since it's basically a rebuilding of the entire core of the OS, it might just work out. In time, that is.
See, rumor has it that the reason why even Google itself only promises two years of big Android updates for its Pixel line has nothing to do with the company wanting to sell you new models. Instead, the blame may lie more with chipset makers such as Qualcomm. To understand how the current update process works, take a look at the image below.
Qualcomm and other chip makers take every new Android release, once it's finalized, and add optimized silicon-specific code. It's important to note that these bits are proprietary and need to be reworked for every single Android iteration. Then the chip vendor hands over the resulting Board Support Package (BSP) to your phone's manufacturer, which adds its own bloat alongside any carrier requirements.
Ignoring the various skins that OEMs add, the big issue is that SoC makers don't seem to think creating BSPs for their chips for more than two years is really necessary. So they don't. When they end support in this way, there's absolutely nothing your device maker can do about the situation, it's simply impossible for it to issue any more updates from that point on.
Treble theoretically fixes this by making it possible for OEMs to create updates even if the silicon vendor stops supporting a certain chipset with new BSPs. That's because thanks to Treble the device-specific, lower-level software written by SoC makers is separated from the Android OS framework through a new vendor interface. Now the framework can be updated independently of the chip maker's layer. So the Qualcomms of the world no longer have to create a reworked implementation of their low-level software for each new Android version - OEMs can simply choose to use the previous one.
Ready for a huge caveat? Project Treble will only live on devices that launch running Android 8.0 Oreo. The only exceptions at the moment are Google's original Pixels from 2016. There may be some other device makers that choose to implement Treble through Oreo software updates, but don't get your hopes up. If what Treble does is important to you, make sure you either have a Pixel or your next device runs Oreo from day one.
Faster boot
There's not much to say here except that Google claims Oreo is twice as fast to boot on its Pixels compared to Nougat, and in our hands-on experience that claim isn't exaggerated at all. Although hopefully you won't have to reboot your Pixel often, when you do you'll surely be surprised by how little time it takes.
Other small (but important) things:
- Stock Android finally supports advanced Bluetooth codecs: aptX, aptX HD, LDAC, and AAC are all built-in letting you get higher quality playback on accessories that support any of these; note though that aptX and aptX HD will only make it to Pixels;
- Full color management lets apps specify the wide-gamut color format they require and automatically displays them using that (AdobeRGB, Pro Photo RGB, DCI-P3, etc.);
- You can add a special Accessibility button to the navigation bar, which you can map to features such as magnification or other accessibility services;</h3>
- Adaptive icons let app developers provide a full bleed square shaped icon and OEMs will mask that with a particular shape to ensure consistency across all app icons;</h3>
- New integrated printing support works with around 97% of printers sold worldwide (Mopria-certified);</h3>
- There's a native C/C++ API for high performance audio which will hopefully make low-latency audio a thing on stock Android;
- Wi-Fi Assistant is built in, auto-connects you to high quality networks and secures them with a Google VPN so that malicious third parties can't intercept your traffic;</h3>
- Wi-Fi will turn on automatically when you're near a high quality saved network (but you can turn this behavior off if you don't like it);</h3>
- Media-related notifications have a colored background based on the hues used in the album art.
Conclusion
Like Android 7.0 Nougat last year, Android 8.0 Oreo is much more an evolutionary update than a revolutionary one, when it comes to obvious user-facing features. For the past couple of years at least, Google's focus seems to have been on adding polish to its mobile operating system, and not introducing huge changes in the way things work. Many small issues and annoyances have been taken care of, though quite a few idiosyncrasies remain in stock Android even now.
Under the hood, however, Oreo is potentially one of the biggest updates the OS has ever seen. Project Treble may or may not live up to the promise of faster OS updates being made available for longer support periods - but regardless of that, it was certainly a big undertaking to rewrite core parts of Android in order to create this new modular base. And that's been done without any perceived downgrades in user experience or design.
The new background limits should be commended too, even though some are only enforced on a small subset of apps by default. We assume this will change with future Android releases, after app developers have had time to make the necessary changes required by the new system. To see all Android apps playing nice with this will definitely take time, but imposing strict limits to what they can do in the background constitutes a pretty big shift in philosophy for an OS that used to have a lot more of an 'anything goes' ideology in years past.
As with every new recent iteration, the mobile world's dominant operating systems, Android and iOS, seem to become just a little bit more alike, more similar. So far this has been achieved without any big loss of individuality for either, since they retain plenty of differentiating features. Will this still be the case five years from now? Stick around and we'll be sure to let you know.
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