#24 ANDROID O Chris Rowlands

If you watched Apple’s recent developer conference, you might have picked up on a little shade being thrown: only 7% of Android users have Android 7.0 Nougat installed on their smartphone. But that hasn’t killed Google’s desire to develop a new offering, Android O, which is set to arrive later this year.

For now, it’s with those clever folks known as devs, but we do know some of the tweaks and tricks soon to hit your Android phone. We don’t, though, know what the ‘O’ stands for – so we’ll assume it’s Oreo. Or something similar.

Battery life is set to get a boost. Android Ontbijtkoek will limit what apps can do when idle in the background to extend your cell well into the evening. This will affect app functionality, but if it’s baked in it should mean less breakage than force-stopping Candy Crush.

Oatmeal will also serve up notification channels. Like the Murdoch of your own mobile, you’ll be able to customise and control notification categories, and limit what gets through from individual apps – such as filtering certain conversations in messaging apps.

Multitaskers will benefit from picturein-picture support for emailing while you Netflix, and adaptive icons should mean your Omelette homescreen looks good whatever theme you pick.

A raft of minor improvements can also be expected, including improved sound quality, better autofill, multiple display support and improved keyboard inputs, all of which should be enough to make you say “Thank you, Android Onion.”

THE NEW ANDROID WILL BOOST BATTERY LIFE BY LIMITING WHAT APPS CAN DO WHEN IDLE