Many smartphone and tablet users are already relishing the use of the upcoming Android N. While this is happening, users of Android TV platform can also put a smile on their faces as this OS also brings quite some great abilities as well.
Google rolled out the Android N developer preview version earlier than usual. It is available for download for users of some of the latest Nexus devices, including the Pixel C. When installed on a Nexus Player, the new OS brings some amazing changes and improvements, among them coming in with support for multiple accounts and a brand new design for the settings app.
Multiple accounts
The previous version of Android lacked a very important feature for users of Android TV – the inability to support multiple accounts. For a gadget that is meant for family use, it made close to no sense to lack such a handy feature. If anything, each family member can own their own account on the device where each can sign in and view their individual content without accessing the content of other users.
This ability is coming to Android TV with the new Android N. It can be accessed via the Settings app and scrolling down to the bottom, there is an option to add an account. Just hit this button and you can go ahead and add another account to the current list.
Since this is a developer preview version of Android N, the functionality of this feature is still wanting. Furthermore, Google developers haven’t updated their apps to support multiple accounts, but this is expected in the final version.
New design language for settings app
Android N comes with some design language changes to the Android TV platform with respect to the Settings app. You can now say goodbye to the older look which featured multiple rows of tiles as the new OS brings a brand new single column that takes after the app’s appearance on Android tablets and smartphones but with a different layout. The main difference between the smartphone/tablet settings app and that of the Android TV platform with respect to Android N is that the latter’s is pinned to the right-hand side of the screen.
Even though this new settings app’s look is not very different from the previous version, the fact that up to 60% of the screen is left unused is quite a big deal.
Android N is still in beta and as such, we cannot confirm that all of the current features will show up in the stable version. But who knows, we might even see newer additions as time flies. We’ll keep you updated.