It’s official – Android Oreo is here

We’ve had Nougat, Marshmallow and Lollipop, and now Oreo rolls along as the latest version of Google’s Android operating system.

Oreo’s might be known for a bit of chill out time with a glass of milk, but this update is billed as the complete opposite. Google has launched the latest version of its operating system under the headline of speed. With our time becoming an increasingly precious commodity, the talking points here are faster performance, multi-tasking and minimized background performance.

After months of developer releases, the full version was launched alongside the solar eclipse in the states, revealing the name which we all kind of guessed anyway. Google has been naming its Android updates after sweets for quite a while now, but this is the first time it has been named after a brand. Conspiracy theorists might ponder where this is a branding exercise by the Oreo team, but it might just be down to the fact there are few sweets beginning with the letter O. We did a bit of Googling and found some less suitable alternatives:

As you can see the options were pretty limited. The team might have had to have a few trademark discussions with Mondelēz International‎, but Oreo certainly rolls off the tongue a bit smoother than Ontbijtkoek.

Aside from the name, there are also a few ‘new’ features, which to be completely honest, aren’t exactly earth shaking. Firstly, speed has been boosted. This means start up times are going to be reduced; for the Pixel phone, this will be ‘up to’ (that crafty condition) faster. It’ll also improve the performance and efficiency of apps in both the foreground and background.

Secondly, a new feature allows for a small pop-out window in the corner of the phone so you can continue watching a movie, or having a video chat, while messing around with other apps. It’s a minor little thing, but there will be numerous millennials who will love this. After all, who wants to give your mum full attention during the weekly call home.

There are also a couple of new APIs which remember all the passwords for your apps, automatically signing you in. For the safety conscious, you can turn it off, but once again, for the time precious they’ll never be able to go back to typing passwords.

And for those who are too time constrained to even type out words, Android is introducing 60 new emojis. We’re not too sure what most of them actually mean, but for those unfortunate Friday night experiences, there is a crab, when you fancy doing a bit of DIY, there is a welding one, and of course there is bacon.

Of course, there are loads of other features, like limiting background performance of apps, or APIs which allow you to share files across the Internet via web links, and the ability to control how intrusive individual notifications are, but only one question now remains; what are they going to name the next one? Polo? Peanut Butter? Percy Pigs? Parma Violets?