What do KitKat, Lollipop, Marshmallow, Nougat and Oreo have in common? One, they are all wonderful condiments that bring us joy and potentially cavities, and second, these are also the names of Android’s successive operating systems that bring our mobile devices to life and also potentially bring cavities in our level of productivity (too real?). If anything on earth could threaten the amount of instalments Rohit Shetty brings out for his Golmaal franchise, it is the one and only Android that is back with yet another operating system, named “Pie”.
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Now what’s packed up in this sweet affair you ask? Well, a lot of new features actually. The reason why Android chose the name Pie for this version of their OS is, according to the chief of Android’s London engineering team, that the name reflects the goals Android wants to achieve with this OS, i.e. simplicity, in their user interface and usage experience.
Right off the top of the list of the new features in Pie, comes the Digital Wellbeing controls. This is for all the people who are addicted to their devices or apps (aka the whole world). There is a dashboard for displaying how much time a user is spending on different apps and a timer that can be set to limit the usage of specific programmes. When the time limit is over the app then gets prevented from launching. Pray to high heavens that your guilt conscience is still functioning so that you would not use the option to override this lockdown.
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There is also the Wind Down mode that switches the colour of the screen to greyscale at a pre-selected time hinting that it is time to put down the device at the end of the day. Basically Android is doing their bit to stop the self-destructive addiction that all of us are sliding into at the speed of the Rap God verse.
Pie also adds image to the notification alerts, showing you the picture of the person who contacted you or the media that they have shared with you.
Congratulations! Now ignoring texts will get more detailed!
Another interesting feature is Slices, which brings forth parts of an app’s user interface without you having to open the actual programme. For example, if you type in the name of a taxi service app in your search bar, information like how far away the nearest cab is or how long the journey will take will appear automatically. But looks like users will have to wait until later this year for this slice of the pie.
There are certainly more subtle features that Android will introduce with this new operating system. Once they roll out the updates for all the devices, get ready for Life of Pie all over again.
