Hands-on with Android N: Increased customization, better notifications, and more
The Android N Developer Preview is out, bringing split screen and a redesigned notification panel among many new Android tweaks. How much more new stuff is what we're here to find out. We already covered the biggest addition—split screen mode—but with the dev preview flashed on a device, we set out to see what else Android N had in store.
Keep in mind this is just a developer preview, and everything is subject to change. The last developer preview, Android M, had all sorts of wacky additions that didn't make it to a consumer version of Android, like an app drawer with huge letter headings and a user-selectable theme setting. Tons of stuff could change between now and release.
One of the coolest new settings that is immediately available is the "Display Size," which lets you adjust the size the entire interface is rendered at. Changing it to a lower setting allows you to see more content on-screen at once, making big-screened devices much more useful. When the massive Nexus 6 was released, we complained that the large screen wasn't very useful, but this potential feature along with multi-window capabilities suddenly changes that. This setting (internally called the software "DPI") was a common thing for modders to change, and now it's freely accessible in the settings under Display > Screen Size.
