5 Android N features you won’t find on iPhone

Split-Screen Multitasking

Remember how excited Apple fans were when split-screen mode finally came to the iPad? And remember how annoyed they were when they found out it wasn’t available on the iPhone?
Smartphones have giant screens these days and there’s simply no reason to restrict multi-window view to tablets alone. Samsung has offered this feature on its Galaxy phones for years and users love it. Read a webpage in one window and take notes in another. Watch a YouTube video while you respond to emails. Chat with friends in WhatsApp without closing the Facebook app. In Android N, the world is your oyster.

Instant Apps

Google flew past this at the very end of the keynote on Wednesday but it’s actually a huge deal. In fact, it’s probably the biggest advancement in mobile app distribution since Apple first launched the App Store back in 2008.
With Instant Apps, users can begin testing out an app from right within the Google Play store… without purchasing it or even downloading it.
Think about how awesome that is. Is that new Twitter app really any better than Falcon Pro 3? Is Google’s hot new Allo app really worth downloading? Is that Flappy Bird clone you just happened upon even more infuriating than the original? You’ll be able to answer all those questions and more in an instant without having to purchase or download anything.

Power-Saving Features

Battery life continues to be the most frustrating thing about the iPhone. Apple’s phablet has decent enough battery life (though it still isn’t quite as impressive as rival phablets) but the 4.7-inch iPhone 6s sometimes can’t even make it through a workday.
Apple added a new Low Power Mode and some other power-saving functionality in iOS 9, but they’re nowhere near as impressive as Android N’s Doze and Svelte features.
Doze debuted in Android Marshmallow and it works very, very well. The feature puts devices in a dormant state when not in use, and it’ll see further optimizations in Android N thanks to “Doze on the Go.” Instead of requiring a phone to be motionless for Doze to work its magic, phones running Android N will see Doze benefits anytime the screen is off.
Then there’s Project Svelte, which prevents apps from waking up when network connection statuses change. It doesn’t sound all that exciting, but the result is far less draw on your device’s battery.

Background System Updates

This, Android fans, is a game-changer.
Smartphone updates are a huge pain because your phone is completely unusable while updates are being applied. That might be 5 minutes or it might be 15 minutes, but your communications are completely severed while updates are underway.
With Android N, updates will work like they do in Chrome OS. They’ll be downloaded in the background (over Wi-Fi only, don’t worry) and they’ll be applied instantly when the phone reboots because they’re installed as separate system images.

Virtual Reality

While iOS users continue to daydream about VR, Android device owners will enjoy a comprehensive VR experience courtesy of Daydream.
Daydream is Google’s attempt to take control of the VR experience, which is already seeing fragmentation in these early days. Google Daydream is a software platform and a hardware reference platform for both headsets and controllers, giving developers and vendors the tools they need to take full advantage of Android N’s virtual reality capabilities.