Android 8.0 Oreo, thoroughly reviewed

We take a 20,000 word deep-dive on Android's "foundational" upgrades.

Read the whole story

 

[Raxiel]

The old "Battery" tile has been replaced with a "Battery Saver" tile, which kicks the phone into low power mode, rather than showing a power usage graph.

If you press and hold the quick tile it will go to battery stats rather than toggling power saver. (There's still an extra step of tapping the diagram at the top to see the graph from there though)

Same goes for the mobile and Wi-fi toggles. Long press has a different function to the tap-toggle.

Edit:
Could the person who downvoted me care to explain why?

I've seen posts elsewhere lamenting the loss of the 'old' shortcuts in O, and I didn't see that mentioned in the article, so I mentioned it here.

I didn't think that would be controversial, unless you think I'm 'wrong'. I know it works (I've used it frequently since my 5X received the OTA via beta enrolment), so would be interested to know if not everyone sees the same behaviour?

 

[Raxiel]

Latentius[/url]":f7mf1v5e]I really hope there's a way to disable the adaptive icons. I'd hate to have everything crammed into ugly circles just because somebody thought that "consistency" was the be-all, end-all of design. It's nice for system apps to have a consistent look, but I rather like the variety when it comes to everything else.

The adaptive icons annoy me too, but for different reasons, The Nexus 5x is officially still supported, but the 'Google Now Launcher' that comes as part of the system image was discontinued earlier this year and doesn't support adaptive icons, so I have a mishmash of styles.

Third party launchers are of course available, but I like the Google Feed, and the only way to keep that with anything other than the default is to download and install an apk from outside the play store (and upgrade to the 'premium' versions of those launchers).

 

[Raxiel]

That sounds like a good idea, but the delivery mechanism for all of these app stores and websites is the Chrome browser. Once you've allowed Chrome to install third-party apps, you've essentially put the "everybody can install" scenario back on the table—the entire Internet has permission to install apps again.

Another alternative is to install a (vetted) file manage from the play store, and let that have unknown apps permission. That way you can download the .apk with chrome, but use the file manager to actually install it (and then, if you're like me, immediately rescind the permission until you need it again). I don't know if file managers need to be specifically updated to offer the feature, but the one I use (FX) already has it.

 

[Raxiel]

nmalinoski[/url]":3kkfsu4t]

So my phone (Nexus 5x) late last night informed me that 8 was available. Yay! Taking a little break at work today and installing Android 8 Oreo! Still yay! Reboot, unlock, look at the home screen. Nooo! What in gods name has happened to the icons?!? Who thought this was a good idea? Is there any way to get back proper icons? The white background is eyebleed inducing. I don't get why every icon needs to be the same shape anyway. It looks like a bad icon pack for gnome or something. I can't find an android 7 icon pack for Arrow either.

I guess I'll get used to it. And i definitely agree that some icons are better than others. I just don't see how this new icon masking setup is going to help with bad icon design, and I don't see how having all the icons the same shape is going to be better in any way, it just further reduces visual information, and that's already pretty limited in a tiny icon.

To my understanding, the Google Now launcher (the one the Nexus 5X generally has) doesn't give you any options for changing the icon backdrop shape; however, the Pixel launcher does, so you'll need to track down an APK of the Pixel launcher, root your phone, and install it as a system app.

You don't need root.

Someone ported the pixel features to the open source version and made the apk available with the debugging flag set - required to access the now feed without root, and the same package name as the real pixel launcher - required to use the weather widget:

https://www.reddit.com/r/Android/commen ... _aosp_800/
Android police endorsed:
http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/08/25 ... ures-much/

I've been using it for a while now. It has the adaptive icon support, but it's still a Sh*tshow if you pick anything other than circle because lots of icons (including, predictably, many of Google's) don't have proper adaptive support, just showing a circle inside whatever shape you pick.