Android 6.0 Marshmallow is here. I have upgraded my Nexus 5 to Marshmallow for a while, and finally have a little bit of time to write a quick review post today. This review will not cover all the new features in Android 6.0. Instead, I will focus on new features (and improvements) that matters for me as ordinary user.
Voice command
Voice command is integrated everywhere. Lock screen now has access for voice search. The home screen (launcher) has voice command button (albeit this is not really new). Now I can say “Ok Google” anywhere, even when opening other apps, and the voice recognition box will appear. I like the new design with 4 colourful dots. The command recognition is generally better than Siri (which misunderstood me way too often), but anything I say is basically being treated as search words by Android. Not necessarily a bad thing, but sometimes I do enjoy having silly conversation with Siri. Something I couldn’t do here.
App drawer
App drawer now scroll vertically. Dragging app icon from App drawer now shows App Info and Uninstall options, while dragging icon from home screen shows Remove and Uninstall options (for apps that can be uninstalled).
Google Now on Tap
While opening any app, we can long press the home button and Google Now will read the screen trying to find something interesting and return its results to us. Very interesting and smartly highlight Google’s strength as the strongest search engine on the planet.
Cut, Copy, Paste
The small feature of cut, copy and paste gains new interaction design. Now Marshmallow shows pop up options right above the selected text. Good move and more intuitive. For people like myself who use both iOS and Android, this bring consistent user experience across my devices, and that’s a good thing.
App permissions
To me, this is probably one of the biggest privacy update in Android after a while. Previously, when we install an app, it will ask permission to access various things and we can only agree to all the request, or not installing the app at all. Now we can say yes to most of the access request but no to one particular request. iOS had this approach for a while and I think it’s a good approach, glad to see Android implements the same approach now.
Doze
Doze is a new feature for intelligent battery management. It monitors how a device is being used and adjust app activity accordingly. It means, if we don’t use our device for quite a while, our apps will enter a “doze” state, which will significantly reduce battery usage, but it will increase the waking up time when we use the device again. For apps, there’s another feature called App Standby.
microSD deep integration
Using Marshmallow, it is now possible to format a microSD card for a specific device (will not be usable elsewhere), allowing it to be treated as part of internal Android storage. This will be a huge plus for some people, especially that the microSD storage capacity can finally be used for anything, including app installation. Of course, at the cost of minor inconvenience that the microSD card will no longer act as removable storage.
Other notable changes
● Newly captured screenshot can now be shared or deleted.
● Fingerprint support.
● USB-C support.
● Significantly improved automatic app backup.
● Confusing silent mode, do not disturb and priority notifications.
● Android Pay.
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