With Google I/O coming up in a few months, the next version of Android is soon to follow. Usually during I/O, Google will show off features of the upcoming Android Developer Preview, then making it available to the general public soon after. We have already gotten our first rumors of Android N, and that includes removing the app drawer. Now thanks to Android Police, we know that the app drawer won’t be the only thing getting changes, the notification shade is next in-line to get revamped.
With Android 5.0 Lollipop came a huge overhaul to the notification shade as well as notifications. Now, with Android N it isn’t as radical of a redesign, but more so an evolution of what Google has wanted to do. At first glance, one of the first things you notice is that the top of the notification shade changed quite a bit. According to Android Police’s source, the icons at the top are now able to be interacted with, similar to the quick settings tiles on Samsung’s TouchWiz.
The notification cards on Android Lollipop and Marshmallow have a slight padding around them. On Android N, they become full width notifications which in turn, allow for more space to show information. The app icons have been scaled down it it seems they will be in a gray scale color.
As far as the quick settings go, the layout has changed. Previously on Marshmallow, you had to enable the System UI Tuner to organize the quick settings, but that isn’t the case on Android N. Now you are able to edit the order directly from the quick settings shade, just like custom ROMs have now. On top of that, the quick settings is now paged so you can store your less used icons on a secondary page. CyanogenMod has already implemented this on CM 13.0, so you can see it in action before Android N is announced.
Now as a disclaimer, these are not actual screenshots from a device running Android N, they are mock-ups based on what Android Police saw. You’ll notice that the application drawer still can be seen, and that is because there wasn’t any indication of it being removed in the build that they saw. That doesn’t mean we are in the clear yet, it is still an early build of Android N, so a lot could change between now and September.
