Android’s ninth major update is now available as a developer preview for a handful of Pixel phones. And unlike the last one, there are a bunch of user-focused, interface alterations to be excited about … especially if you’re an admirer of what the folks at Cupertino have done in the past few months. Yes, Android P (my money is on Popsicle) borrows a couple of nifty ones and one arguably dumb feature from iOS. Here are five of those.
All Aboard the Notch Train
Google seems to be going all in with the notch trend and with Android P, the company is making it easier for developers and phone makers to embrace iPhone X’s design quirk. The update allows developers to preview their applications with various notch shapes and sizes such as “narrow display cutout”, “tall display cutout”, and “wide display count”.
In addition to that, Google has redesigned the status bar to accommodate the new wave of app designs. For starters, the time has relocated to the top left corner from the right and notifications will be clubbed into a single icon as soon as they reach the middle of the bar.
Magnifier Tool
Editing text is a lot less frustrating on Android as Google has brought the intuitive magnifier tool from iOS. Whenever you slide across a piece of text, it will automatically enlarge the portion wherever your cursor’s at in a floating window.
Screenshot Editor
Google’s screenshot editor is no longer restricted to its own app. With Android P, it’s a universal feature which works across the OS and shows up when you tap the “Edit” option after capturing a screenshot. You can doodle, highlight, switch shades and even crop the image. Once done, it saves the file on the local storage, although I would have preferred a share option instead.
Do Not Disturb
The “Do Not Disturb” setting has been revamped to be much less complicated. There’s only a single mode unlike the plethora of options on Android 8. You can still manually edit it for gaining more control over what kind of notifications like alarms, repeated calls you want to receive.
Quick Settings
While the functionality of quick settings is largely unchanged on Android P, it looks a lot different than before. Google has switched to rounded tiles with a blue background which, in a lot of ways, resemble various iOS’ control center elements like WiFi.
So those were the five Android P features which seem to have been inspired by iOS. Let us know in the comment section if we missed any.