So you knew hit had to happen. Less than a week with a Nexus 6, and I just installed the Android M Developer Preview on it. Here's the changes I've seen so far:
Do Not Disturb: Now has 3 options: None, Alarms Only, and Priority. None kills all notifications. Alarms Only allows only the alarms through, and Priority follows the rules you set for who can break through. DND has more options in it too, allowing for multiple rule sets. I'd love to see a geofence trigger, but it's nearly perfect. It's what they should've had in Lollipop. Now, I know that most manufacturers changed that already within their "skins" of Android, but it's great to see stock get proper options. The best part of this, for me, is that Android Wear doesn't follow the notification scheme of the phone, meaning the phone can be silenced and my watch will still vibrate. I'm hoping that holds through when the watch is updated to M as well, but I wouldn't be surprised if it's vibration settings follow that of the phone at that point, such as it did when both the watch and phone were on Lollipop (which was super annoying). We shall see.
Quick Settings: DND is now in the Quick Settings. Also, if you enable the System UI Tuner in Developer Options, you can add/remove/reorder the Quick Settings. This is fantastic for managing your settings drawer.
Volume Controls: Now you have more control over ring/system/alarm volume right from the volume rocker. Hit the rocker and the tap the drop down for more options. Love it.
Sounds: You can now turn off charging sounds. Not a big change, but a welcome one.
App Drawer: Now it scrolls vertically, with the 4 most recent apps on top and the rest broken into alphabetical categories. I'd love to see an option to jump between letters (like in Windows Phone).
Lockscreen: The phone dialer shortcut has been replaced with a Google Now voice shortcut. This seems a bit odd to me.
Wi-Fi Calling: I'm on T-Mobile, so this was recently enabled in the 5.1.1 update anyway, but it's built-in here.
Theme: Enabling Developer Options unlocks a "theme" option. Within it is the normal "Light" theme and a new "Dark" theme. On top of that, there's an "Automatic" option, which uses some rule to change the system interface. Not sure if it's light-based or time-based, but putting it in a dark room hasn't changed anything. If I figure it out, I'll update this post.
That's all I've noticed so far. In theory, Doze should help my battery life by detecting when the phone isn't moving or charging and shutting off data, but I haven't seen that benefit yet, as I'm about an hour in. Now On Tap isn't enabled in this build. Android Wear seems to be working fine, though I've read reports that certain things can cause it to crash and restart. Looking forward to exploring more of the new OS. :)
Notes:
Whoa. Waze is beyond borked. It actually messes up the whole system UI to the point that you have to reboot. Looks like Google Maps will be my go-to for a while. lol
Android Wear suffers crashes when a call goes out, and the incoming call screen stays on for the duration of an incoming call.
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