8 Top Android Marshmallow Features with Video

Android 6.0 Marshmallow was finally made available for the public to download and with it comes many new features although they’re not all visibly obvious they’re welcome changes nonetheless. This is my round up of my favorite inclusions in this year’s new operating system.

1. Newly Designed App Drawer

First up I guess it is the most obvious and that’s the newly designed app drawer. Instead of swiping through an endless number of pages full of apps the new default draw scrolls up and down all the apps arranged alphabetically which makes finding them really easily. Especially with the scroll bar on the side.

2. Apps Suggestion and Search

My next favorite inclusion sort of goes along with out and it’s apps suggestion and search. Android 6.0 can suggest after right at the top of your board based on what you use frequently. It giving you the most likely options for your looking for. You can also search for apps using the search bar just above that. It makes finding apps ridiculously simple.

3. Now on Tap

Next on my list is Now on Tap, Google Now is getting better all the time and with Android Marshmallow its contextually aware regardless of which apps you’re in. If you’re in messages or an email for instance you press and hold the home button to bring up Now on Tap and it gives you information and action suggestions based on what content is in that message. You can use that to launch web pages or maps or social network sites.

4. Battery Life Saver Feature

Next up are a couple of tools used to make your battery life even better. The first of them is called Doze. When your phone is in stand by automatically drops everything that it can to conserve as much power as possible. So you can leave your phone off charges night even when there’s hardly any battery left and you are still not miss your alarm in the morning. The other battery saving option is Up Stand By. Essentially make sure that none of your apps that you rarely use have a disproportionate effect on your battery life and you can see which apps optimized for battery if you go into the settings which brings me nicely into the next point. Google has made controlling app settings in general a lot easier and you go into settings and then as you can see an in-depth controls like notifications and permissions as well as being able to see how much battery at any specific apps since you last charge the phone.

5. Better Control Over Permissions When You Download Apps

One of Android Marshmallows other great features is the better control over permissions when you download apps. Instead of asking you for your blanket permissions of everything when you download an app from the Play Store. Marshmallow asks you for your permission on a Apps by apps function by function basis. If you want to change permissions later you can go back into the settings into apps and you can edit which functions the apps have access to.

6. Do Not Disturb Feature

Now, Do Not Disturb has been around for a little while now but it’s got a whole lot better with Marshmallow. First off you can toggle it or not just by dropping down the Quick Settings menu but more importantly you can now create bespoke rules based on calendar events or schedules. You can also settings so that if somebody’s tried to call you three times within the space of fifteen minutes that call actually come through.

7. The New Widgets

Next up is the new widgets for you and this is similar to the app drawer like the app drawer all the widgets are now collected and organized alphabetically in a vertical scrolling window on their organized and broken down by apps.

8. The New Easter Egg

And lastly there’s the new easter egg. While in lollipop when you access the special Easter Egg you basically played Google’s version of flappy bird except you with a little android robot trying to avoid getting stuck on a lollipop. This time out the same except you’re trying to not get stuck on a Marshmallow not exactly different but they have changed some of the game play and it is a fun distraction if you’re bored.

Thanks to 9to5Google for making this great video !