The developer preview for Android N landed in our laps yesterday. While we went over many of the features found in the new version of Android, there are still quite a few small changes that we’re still uncovering. One of which is long-pressing icons in the quick settings section of the notification shade. While Google added the flashlight icon in Android 5.0 Lollipop, long-pressing it didn’t do anything before. Not even turning the flashlight on. Now, in Android N, when you long-press the flashlight you jump into the camera. Kind of nifty, but it’d likely be just as fast to double-tap the power button and open the camera.
When you long-press the other toggles in Quick Settings, you are taken to their respective settings. For instance, long-pressing WiFi will take you to WiFi Settings. Long-pressing the network icon will take you to the cellular network settings, and so on. Pretty logical for anyone using Android N. And its the same as it was in Android 5.0 Lollipop as well as Android 6.0 Marshmallow. The Quick Settings or toggles are also customizable now, out of the gate. Before you needed to use the system ui tuner or root your device to be able to edit the quick settings. So it’s nice that Google gave us the option to customize them out of the box.
Android N was announced yesterday with the first developer preview making its way out the door. Google is hoping to have five developer previews, with the final release coming in Q3. Which would be around August or September, that also means we’ll be seeing a new developer preview basically each month. Google decided to change things up a bit this year, and it will likely lead to an earlier Nexus release. Seeing as we have yet to get a large Android release without new hardware, it isn’t crazy to expect to see the new Nexus come out in August or September of this year. Which, by the rumors, is supposedly being made by HTC this year – and the next two years afterwards. Seeing as HTC has reportedly signed a 3-year agreement to manufacturer Nexus devices.