Hands-on with Android N: Increased customization, better notifications, and more

The Android N Developer Preview is out, bringing split screen and a redesigned notification panel among many new Android tweaks. How much more new stuff is what we're here to find out. We already covered the biggest addition—split screen mode—but with the dev preview flashed on a device, we set out to see what else Android N had in store.

Keep in mind this is just a developer preview, and everything is subject to change. The last developer preview, Android M, had all sorts of wacky additions that didn't make it to a consumer version of Android, like an app drawer with huge letter headings and a user-selectable theme setting. Tons of stuff could change between now and release.

One of the coolest new settings that is immediately available is the "Display Size," which lets you adjust the size the entire interface is rendered at. Changing it to a lower setting allows you to see more content on-screen at once, making big-screened devices much more useful. When the massive Nexus 6 was released, we complained that the large screen wasn't very useful, but this potential feature along with multi-window capabilities suddenly changes that. This setting (internally called the software "DPI") was a common thing for modders to change, and now it's freely accessible in the settings under Display > Screen Size.

The Recent Apps screen has gotten a few tweaks. There is, of course, the split screen mode, but the thumbnails are larger, too. They're closer to full-screen thumbnails than "cards" now. Hitting the Recent Apps button multiple times triggers an app switching mode that works a lot like "alt+tab" on windows. Pressing the Recent Apps button once opens the screen, and successive presses will cycle through thumbnails on the screen. While you're cycling through, a timer is displayed in the form of a bar below the title of each app. When the bar depletes, the app opens, giving you about one second to switch apps before the current app opens (note that this doesn't happen in multitasking mode, at least not in this build).

The new notification panel

The notifications display in the notification panel and on the lock screen has been completely redesigned. The card motif is out—notifications now stretch horizontally from edge to edge, with only a minimal line separating them vertically. The layout of a notification has changed, too. Notifications now all get a top identifying line of text, which contains the app icon and the name of the app (colored appropriately), your account name, and the time of the notification. Tapping on this line can expand or collapse the notification, but the old two-finger pull gesture still works, too.

The usual swipe-to-dismiss gesture works, but if you horizontally swipe a notification a small amount, you'll see a settings gear peep out from behind the notification. Tap it and you'll see options to block the app from displaying notifications, select the app's notifications, or jump to the larger app notification settings screen.

If apps generate a lot of notifications, they'll get combined into a "bundle." Take Gmail, for instance. At first it works a lot like how the old notification worked—one notification will have lots of text and be able to be expanded, while multiple mails would have a combined notification that said something like "3 New Messages" and would only display a small amount of messages for each one. Android N still works like this, but if you expand that combined notification, it will expand into individual notifications for each message. You then swipe each message away individually, or you can further expand those messages and get the usual "Archive/Reply" buttons for each message. The only problem right now is that pressing "Archive" or "Reply" on any message will also dismiss the entire bundle, which is definitely a bug. It is just a "Developer Preview" after all.

There's also a new "Quick reply" mode that some apps support. Tapping the reply button fires up the keyboard right in the notification panel. Hangouts turns the bar a lovely shade of green.

The quick settings have been redesigned as well. The first five icons live permanently at the top of the notification panel in a "minimized" mode. Pulling down the quick settings or tapping on the down arrow will expand the panel to show the normal, full-size quick settings. There's an "Edit" button now right in the panel, allowing you to move items around or remove them. (Keep in mind the first five get that special permanent placement in the minimized bar.)

Marshmallow had a rather complicated quick settings panel when it came to things like "Wi-Fi" and "Bluetooth." The icon was a toggle, but there was also a panel indicated that could be opened by tapping on the (very tiny) text of the icon. Android N changes this up: when quick settings is minimized, the bar's five icons are all toggles, but when expanded, most items open panels. There are the usual panels for Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Do Not Disturb, but there's also a new panel for the battery. Some items are still toggles even when the quick settings are expanded, like the flashlight, auto rotate, and airplane mode.

If you don't want to use the panels, long pressing on an icon will jump right to the appropriate settings screen. Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and Battery take you where you would expect, but every icon has a long press shortcut. Long pressing on the flashlight icon opens the camera, long pressing on auto rotate opens the display settings, and long pressing on the "Android N" panel will open the status screen. These long-press shortcuts even work on the minimized bar. That "Android N" button, by the way, just opens a feedback screen.

The other great shortcuts are still here, like tapping on the alarm to edit your alarm or quickly switching users by tapping on the user icon.