Following the annual release cycle, Google presented us Android 6.0 Marshmallow on the October 5th. While this isn’t a big visual overhaul to the Android platform as compared to the 5.0 Lollipop release, it certainly packs in a lot of new features.
With Marshmallow, Google tried fine tuning the user experience that Android offers and polishing the OS. Marshmallow builds up on what Lollipop delivered (You can check out Marshmallow vs Lollipop article for that matter). After upgrading, you will definitely experience the boost in performance and efficiency. Let’s have a look at 11 new Android Marshmallow features.
Easter Egg
Google has had a proud tradition of delighting its users by baking in some neat little Easter Eggs into its products. Same goes with Android Marshmallow. Head over to Settings and tap on About Phone. Tap several times on the Android Version to reveal the Easter egg. And you would be greeted by the updated Flappy Android game which, to be honest, is a little easier to play now.
Doze
Lollipop integrated Project Volta into the system which was a tool to measure and conserve battery more effectively. And that certainly gave the OS a boost in terms of battery consumption. With the battery saver on you could easily extend your usage by up to 90 minutes. Fast forward to 2015 and now we have Doze. Doze is battery life supercharged! Doze is one of the biggest attempts at increasing the standby time of Android devices. What Doze does is, it makes use of the array of sensors present on your device to identify if the device is being used or it’s been set down (not being used). Once triggered it puts all apps to deep sleep mode while still being able to wake up to priority notifications and system level calls like texts or phone calls. This extends the standby time significantly as seen from the screenshot below while Dozing the device consumes almost no juice. This compromises app freshness for better battery which is a huge thumbs up to Google from the users.
Now On Tap
I’m an Android aficionado so this may be biased, but Google Now is definitely the most useful, non-gimmicky personal assistant which provides information at a glance. With Marshmallow Google Now gets a whole lot smarter with Now On Tap.
Now On Tap, provides contextual information, proactively to users and at first it may look like a Star Trek era feature. Mind=Blown.
What Now On Tap does is, it scans your screen for information and informs you about it if it’s relevant to your context. Just head over to an app you want to try out and long press the home button, Google will fetch results which will be relevant to your current context.
System UI Tuner
Customization is one of the biggest reasons why users choose Android. And this goes a step further with the 6.0 release. While stock Android still had a long way to go till it offers what forked variants of the AOSP like CyanogenMod offer, Marshmallow is a step in the right direction. With Marshmallow, you can now customize the quick settings tiles. Pull down your notification shade and long press the gear icon, when it starts spinning, release it. You have now unlocked the System UI Tuner menu. You can now change your quick tiles or even embed the battery percentage in the battery icon. (Yay).
Simplified Audio Controls
We all hated the Lollipop Volume control options. It just made a simple option way too confusing. And to everyone’s delight it has been simplified in Marshmallow. You now get a down arrow to control media audio and alarms as well. And the notification toggle gives a simpler description of the three modes.
App Permissions
Gone are the days of blindly accepting all permissions and being vulnerable to security breach through apps. On Marshmallow, just like iOS, you will be prompted to grant or deny a permission request only when you use it. This means during app installs you won’t be presented with a list of permissions that an app requires, thus making the app discovery and installation process more seamless. You can always change the permissions by going to Settings then Apps and then by tapping on the gear icon and heading over to App permissions.
Delightful Animations
Lollipop brought with it Material Design which is Google’s approach to minimalistic yet beautiful design language. On Marshmallow, you would notice some new and improved animations throughout the system. For example, apps now launch from the point where the screen was touched, heads up notifications now fall down with a thud and many more.
Vertical Launcher
Google updated its launcher which now scrolls vertically. You also have smart app suggestions on the top most row.
Flex Storage
On Marshmallow, you can expand your internal storage by formatting your external sd card as an internal storage expansion. This means more memory for your apps.However once formatted, you cannot use the SD Card anywhere else.
You can go over to Settings tap on Storage, select your SD card and then tap on the three dots on the upper right corner and go into Settings. Select format as internal, now format your SD card and reboot your device.
Verified Boot
Android 6.0 makes it makes it mandatory for devices with decent cryptographic performance to enable full disk encryption. Also on newer devices, the framework would alert users in case they unlock the boot loader and play with the OS on a deeper level.
Android Pay
Perhaps this feature was long overdue, on devices which are equipped with NFC, Android Marshmallow would unlock the new payments feature by Google, codenamed Android Pay. It’s an intuitive and simple process of making purchases at outlets and online using a tap of a button and fingerprint authentication (which by the way has been natively implemented on Android 6.0).
Conclusion
As an operating system, Android still has to cover some grounds for becoming the most productive platform. But the improvements and features offered by each new iteration points towards a brighter and greener future.
Thank you for sharing details of Marshmallow features. Android is becoming very popular. Marshmallow is latest version after lollipop. It is very helpful information which you shared. Thanks alot.
Nice one. Doze will surely improve the battery performance of Android devices. It is one of the features that I particularly liked about the Android Marshmallow.
Awesome Blog!!!
I visit your blog first time and I am gone love with in it!!!
Really informative articles!
Out of all features introduced in Marshmallow, I liked the most is Doze and Now on Tap which are pretty interesting features. By the way the easter egg looks similar to lollipop :P very informative article.
Hi really nice article. I get nice idea after read your blog. Thanks a lot.
Nice article for those who love Android. I know a lot by visiting this website. In this article you get informative knowledge about Android.
For android user, I think this article is very helpful. Android now have control most of the mobile market. I am astonished by seeing the way Android come to the No. 1 place in mobile platform. Thanks for your nice article.
Well written and explained features of Android Marshmallow. Nice article,
I love Lollipop, now I want Marshmallow too :D When it’s going to be available on Cyanogen? Thanks.
I was a little sceptical about Doze, every year there are claims to improve battery efficiency and lifespan. But it really works. I usually use 10-15% overnight, now with Doze, it’s a very noticeable 3-4%. Well done Google.
Awesome article mate. I recently Oppo R7 working great, but it has Lollypop hoping that will get update soon, however, I didn’t get any confirmation about it from Oppo that’s why am not sure I’ll get or not :)
Nice info brother. I love reading this, and good to know about Android Marshmallow. Some of the expected features are missing, let’s hope those features will come in the next update.
Thanks for this article, keep writing more for us.
Android Marshmallow is great. Thanks for sharing its features.
I particularly liked the change in permissions.
(1) It doesn’t ask for permissions when you install an app. It asks when you first use an app.
(2) It asks permissions 1 by 1. So you can deny the specific permission you may not want to give to an app.
How Can I update Android Marshmallow OS on my old Samsung phone?
What is the system requirement?
I can’t wait to receive 6.0 Marshmallow for my HTC One M8. This new Doze feature seems amazing and I’m really curious about how much it will improve my battery life. Besides this, Now on Tap seems pretty interesting, even though I don’t think I’ll use it that often.
Hai,
Now all smartphones are using the Android software. Without Android, we can’t imagine smartphones. Now am using Android lollipop version. After reading this article, I planned to upgrade from Lollipop to Marshmallow version.
Wow, Marshmallow does seem like the next big deal. Currently, battery life on my phone running Android Lollipop is terrible, so I hope I get this update soon. Nice post by the way.
Great blog post. Really loved reading your blogs. The features you told in the post are awesome too.
I am not a great fan of Android devices, but these features made me re-evaluate my opinion. I hope that is not a silly question, but do you trust Android in terms of security? I am still skeptical about!
Android as an operating system is very secure. It has multiple layers of protection to keep malware at bay, and it requires your specific permission to do almost anything that could lead to your data or the system being compromised. We can say that Android is secure but users are’nt.
Thanks for sharing Marshmallow features, nice post.. :)
Android Marshmallow is latest Android version but still I don’t like some features of Marshmallow especially its app drawers. Its kinda time consuming and feels a bit awkward as well at the time of scrolling. But transition effects and animations of Marshmallow is simply awesome.
Really nice and informative article. I think Marshmallow update is very good, I personally upgraded my Note 2 on Android 6.0 and it is working very fast.
Marshmallow is great than older version, thanks for sharing this information.
This really is a great article. It really helped me a lot regarding Marshmallow because I also use Note 4 and upgraded it. Great information thank you.
I will bookmark it ad will share it with my friends.
Great post. Thanks for sharing the new features about the latest Android OS.
Marshmallow Is best ever OS of Google due to its awesome features.
Thanks for Sharing!
You wrote a great article on Marshmallow, keep it up!
Hi Prateek,
Very nice article about Android Marshmallow features. Thanks for sharing.
Android Marshmallow is one of the best OS yet. Very nice information and it was worth reading. Thank you very much for sharing.
I have been using Nexus 5 2013 edition for more than a year now and have been using all the latest Android versions. I must say that Marshmallow is the best Android version I have used. It is sleek, simple and really easy to use. My battery life has improved tremendously with it.
Android Marshmallow, never heard this before. This post help me a lots.
Thank you.
Android Marshamllow was released alongside the 2015 Nexus devices, on September 29, 2015.
Marshmallow is the best Android OS that I have ever used.
Really great, helpful and informative post. Marshmallow is the best update in my opinion. I like author’s writing style.
Awesome article about marshmallow feature. Out of all the Marshmallow features, I like the Doze and Fingerprint API technology features.
Android Marshmallow is latest Android version but still I don’t like some features of Marshmallow especially its app drawers. Its kinda time consuming and feels a bit awkward as well at the time of scrolling. But transition effects and animations of Marshmallow is simply awesome.
Hi Prateek,
I recently got Marshmallow update to my Phone, I came to know about so may features after reading this great post. There are really new advanced improvements when compared to Lollipop. In fact, I am waiting for Nougat.
Hi Sarvesh, here are some top confirmed features of Android N – https://www.techlila.com/android-n-features/
Marshmallow has many improved features which really matters in a long run. I’ve used Marshmallow for over an year before flashing Nougat on my OnePlus.
This is a great article. It really helped me a lot regarding Marshmallow version update because I also use Note 4 and upgraded it. Great information thank you.
I will bookmark it ad will share it with my friends.
I have been using nougat android version since one month. I didn’t like that much. Marshmallow was really awesome :)
I have never used Marshmallow before, but with this review here, I will check it out.
Marshmallow is better than Nougat in some features actually. It’s an evergreen android OS.
I’ve been using it since it’s release. Simply awesome. Nice post regarding collecting all the features.
Thanks, Prateek sir for sharing this article. I was thinking to flash the marshmallow ROM on my phone. After looking these features, I am gonna do it. Thanks