Living with Android 7.0 Nougat: The most important changes

Android 7.0 Nougat has finally reached Google’s Nexus devices after more than five months of developer preview testing. The final version is more stable and has a ton of new features. Most phones won’t get a Nougat update for a few months at least, and that’ll only happen if the carrier and OEM consider it a high priority. 

What can you expect when that glorious day finally arrives? I’ve been using Nougat on both a Nexus 6P and a Pixel C for the last few days.

 I won’t bother reciting all the features, which you can find a simple list of them on Google’s site. Let’s talk about what it’s actually like to use Android 7.0 Nougat as a daily driver.

Doze mode gets better

In my opinion, Doze Mode in Android 6.0 was one of the most important features to ever show up in Android. It addressed an ongoing issue with phones that could cause problems even for the most experienced users.

 Sometimes you’d install an app, and it would misbehave in the background, draining your battery while the phone sat idle. Doze Mode shuts all that down.

In Marshmallow, leaving the phone sitting for about 30 minutes would activate Doze mode. Almost all apps would be put to sleep and not permitted by the system to wake up until a regular update window was reached or you picked up the phone. Important push notifications would still arrive while in Doze.