Newsletter
Now that Google’s I/O event is well underway and most of the major announcements have come through, more refined details are starting to emerge and will continue to do so over the coming hours and days. This is typical for new updates and features as it takes the community time to digest what has been announced, run through the new offerings and figure out what is new, what is not and everything in between. One of these announcements which will be digested and analysed for a long time to come is the Android M Developer Preview. This was announced at the event yesterday and soon after the event ended became available for download for Nexus devices.
Well, since then there has already been a number of aspects of M already being noted. For instance, late yesterday the main wallpaper was pulled from the preview of M and made available for those who want to install on their current Android 5.x (Lollipop) device or even their Android 4.4.x (KitKat) device. Likewise, late yesterday also saw the release of a bunch of the ringtones, alarms and sounds from M. These were again captured and made available to download for those not running M.
Well, in the following digestion of M, it seems there is a minor but interesting change to the system settings. In particular, to how Google settings are accessed. For most of us, Google settings are integral to the running of our smartphones. In spite of them not actually being system settings, as Google services come so heavily entwined into our system they may as well be. Well, that seems to be Google’s thinking too, as the Google settings in M have been moved from their previous Google Settings app status to part of the actual settings menu. Therefore, any changes you want to make specifically to your Google account related information can now be done so via the main settings menu. As noted, this is only a minor change on the face of it. Although, it does seem to be one which recognizes how integral Google’s apps are becoming to the android experience. Small changes like this will most probably highlight the main bulk of what we can expect from Android M. That said, these small changes will also collectively come together to form a much wider and broader change than may have previously been expected, following the larger Lollipop changes previously noted over the last year.
