All Android smartphone owners will be acutely familiar with the issue of their smartphone getting hot. While for some, this is often seen as ‘overheating’, the reality is that it generally affects all smartphones and is not something specific to select handsets or the price range of the handset. Of course, there are differentiating factors that can accelerate the heating and which do vary from smartphone to smartphone and from processor to processor, but the issue of a smartphone heating up is a common one, and one which many OEMs and researchers have tried to fix through various different cooling systems and other more novel solutions.
What is typically one of the driving forces behind smartphones heating up is app usage and especially apps which require running for extended periods. Therefore, those who stream or game from an Android smartphone often are likely to encounter the heat issue more often than those who simply flip out their phone, Google something and put it away again. Either way, with the latest version of Android N, Google is looking to try and stem the problem by introducing a ‘sustained performance mode.’
According to the limited details, the idea behind the sustained performance mode, is that apps will be able to draw on the use of the feature to tweak their performance and offer a more “predictable” and “consistent level” of performance across devices. This is achieved through devices being able to also make use of the API to provide information on how they perform when engaged with apps that run for lengthier sessions. Again, according to the details, the sustained performance API is now available as part of the latest developer preview (3) of Android N, so app developers can start tweaking and playing with the feature. However, the documentation does note that it only seems to be available via the Nexus 6P preview for now. Which probably is representative of how early the stage of development of the feature is. Although, it does seem likely that it will be more commonplace in future dev previews of Android N and presumably will make it to the final release of N, when it becomes available. Which will be good news for all smartphone owners, regardless of whether they stream or game.