7 Lesser Known Hidden Android Oreo 8.0 Features ⋆ China Life & Buying Guide

The new iteration of android is now official and it is named as android Oreo which we already knew since the first developer preview. This new version has plenty of changes in store, and most probably you already know most of them.

But today I am going to show you 7 lesser known Hidden features of android Oreo that will definitely improve your experience even further.

Excited so let’s get started.

Hidden Android Oreo 8.0 Features

Hi-Fi Bluetooth Codecs

So, let’s start with some useful one’s and Hi-Fi Bluetooth codec is first on the list. Bluetooth has always been criticized for its lower audio quality when compared to a set of wired headphones. But now a days 3.5 mm Jack is becoming less standard as the major smartphone manufacturer are getting rid of it and focusing more towards wireless audio, and that’s enough to conclude that now we are living in a wireless world at least that’s what OEMs are thinking before removing the headphone jack.

Thankfully, Google has added a handful of high-quality Bluetooth codecs to Android Oreo which is hidden inside the developer’s options. By using these codecs, you will definitely find significant improvements in audio quality. It supports codecs like Sony’s LDAC SBC, AAC, Aptx and Aptx HD.

Notification Channel

Android Oreo focuses more towards notification management and that’s why they added a new feature called notification channel. This feature lets you choose between less useful and more useful notification for a specific app.

For instance, this feature could be handy with filtering notifications from certain conversations in messaging apps. To access this head over to the app notification and select the app for which you want to enable this. Now click on miscellaneous and here you will see lots of options regarding notification. You can choose from options like NO SOUND OR VISUAL INTERRUPTION, SHOW SILENTLY, MAKE SOUND AND POP UP ON SCREEN and many more.

Adaptive icons

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With the Pixel, Google introduced the concept of rounded home screen icons and with android Oreo they took the concept even further by introducing Adaptive icons.

With this new feature in Android 8.0, developers can create a single, unified app icon, and the system will do the rest. When an app offers an Adaptive Icon, Android Oreo will automatically crop and align it according to the system settings.

If you tap and hold the home screen you will get this setting option just click on that and here you will find an option called change icon shapes. Here you can choose from different shaped icons and it will create an overlay of that shape over your icons. The idea behind adaptive icon is very innovative but I think it is not well implemented yet as it is still in its initial stage of development.

Autofill API

The Autofill APIs introduced with Android O simply try to help apps manage passwords and form data better than in previous versions of Android. The Autofill app stores and secures user data, such as addresses, usernames, and even passwords to the assigned Autofill app. For instance, if you open an app like twitter and you want to sign in to your account, now this will automatically show you the suggestion for your user name, once selected it will automatically fill the password and now you are good to go.

This feature will definitely save you from the hassle of repeatedly entering the same information on a touchscreen keyboard.

Snooze Notifications

As I mentioned earlier that android O focuses more towards notification management. So here is another cool hidden feature that has been introduced in Android Oreo and by using this you can snooze the notifications.

For instance, you got a WhatsApp message and you want to read that later on. Just swipe the notification to right and tap this clock icon to snooze the notification. This will make the message go away for 15 minutes, then come right back when the time is up. You can also change the snooze length right after you鈥檝e snoozed a notification. And this one is definitely one of my favourite features from android Oreo as I receive lots of notifications throughout a day.

Built-in File Manager & Cleaner

The previous versions of android were criticised by their users for not having its own inbuilt file manager. But in Android Nougat we had a hidden file manager inside storage setting and that was very basic.

But now in Android Oreo you will see a dedicated icon for the file manager in the app drawer inside which the categories are more sorted now.

Android’s built-in file manager isn’t the best on the market, but it’s nice to have a way to browse files without having to install an additional app.

Picture in Picture

Last year Android Nougat introduces picture-in-picture mode which basically shrinks a playing video into a floating window. But at that time this feature was only available for Android TVs but not anymore. Now with this new Android Oreo update you can use this feature on your smartphones too

This is a special type of split-screen window that should be particularly useful for watching videos while performing other tasks, though apps will need to be updated to support the new API.