Android Nougat 7.0 Features

                               

Android 7.0 "Nougat" is the 7th version of the Android operating system. 1^st released as a beta build on March 9, 2016, and then it was officially released on August 22, 2016, with Nexus devices being the 1st to receive the update. Android Nougat introduces notable changes to the operating system and its development platform, including support for inline replies to notifications, the ability to display multiple apps on-screen at once in a split-screen view, as well as an Open JDK-based Java environment & support for the Vulkan graphics rendering API, and "seamless" system updates on supported devices.

Features 

• User Experience

Android Nougat introduces a split-screen display mode, in which 2 apps can be snapped to occupy halves of the screen. An experimental multi-window mode is also available as a hidden feature, where multiple apps can appear or display simultaneously on the screen in overlapping windows.

 The notification shade was redesigned, allowing inline replies to notifications and featuring a smaller row of icons for settings, replacing notification cards with a new "sheet" design, and multiple notifications from a single app can also be "bundled", & there is greater per-app control over notifications.

 The "Doze" power saving mode that was introduced in Android Marshmallow, was expanded to include a state activated when the device is running on battery & the screen has been off for a period of time but is not stationary. As in Android Marshmallow, the full Doze state is activated if the device is stationary with its screen off for a period of time. A new "Data Saver" mode restricts background mobile data usage, & can trigger internal functions in apps that are designed to reduce bandwidth usage, such as capping the quality of streaming media.

• Platform 

In the mid of December 2015, Google announced that Android Nougat would switch its Java Runtime Environment (JRE) from the defunct Apache Harmony to OpenJDK, the official open-source implementation of the Java platform maintained and developed by Oracle Corporation & the Java community.

Nougat introduces a system for enabling "seamless", automatic system updates, based upon & sharing some code with the implementation of similar functionality on Chrome OS.

Support for the Daydream VR platform was also introduced in Android Nougat. Features include a "sustained performance mode" to assist developers in optimizing apps to devices thermal profile, a "VR mode" for reduced graphics latency, a new head tracking algorithm which combines the input from various device sensors, & integration of system notifications into the VR user interface.

Nougat is the 1st version featuring Unicode 9.0 that supports and comes with updated emoji + support for emoji skin tones.

• Security

On devices with Android Nougat, the "Verified Boot" policy must be strictly enforced. If system files are corrupted or modified, the OS will only allow operation in a limited use mode or refuse to boot at all.

Runtime integer overflow detection was implemented, preventing the majority of Stagefright like programming bugs from becoming vulnerabilities. To better adhere to the principle of Least privilege, Android monolithic MediaServer process was redesigned. MediaServer can now split into several separate processes, each of them running in its own unprivileged sandbox, & granted only the permissions required for its task.


Graphic Driver Update Controversy

In August 2016, it was reported that Qualcomm is not going to update their "Soc", Snapdragon 400, 410, 412, 200, 208, 210, 212, 600, 800 & 801 chipsets to support Android Nougat. In order for devices to be approved for Android Nougat, they needed to pass Google's Compatibility Test Suite; which, for Nougat, requires graphics driver support for Vulkan or OpenGL ES 3.1.

Some Supported processors are Snapdragon 415, 430, 435,615,616, 617, 625, 650, 652, 805, 808, 810, 820, 821.