Android 6 Marshmallow review: A host of little improvements

There always seems to be more fuss made over the release of shiny new hardware, especially new Nexus phones, but remember: new Nexuses also means the arrival of the latest version of Android, and in this case it’s Android 6 Marshmallow.

First announced at Google’s I/O conference earlier in 2015, Marshmallow has been available for developers to install on compatible devices for some months, but it will finally arrive in a form that’s ready for customers on the Nexus 6P and Nexus 5X smartphones, and it will steadily roll out to older Nexus devices over the course of the coming weeks.

Marshmallow isn’t a dramatic overhaul, but as ever it brings with it a number of new features and changes. Here’s what you can expect to see when the software update hits your phone.

Android 6 Marshmallow review: Setup and UI changes

Google changed the setup procedure substantially last year, introducing a cleaner, simpler process, and selective restore. This year, bar a slight colour change from light-blue to dark-blue graphics, it’s largely the same.

It’s the same story with the general look and feel of the UI – there’s no change to the overarching design language of Android. Throughout the OS, Google has maintained the visual trope of floating flat cards – a look it calls “Material Design” – which it introduced last year.

There are, however, some smaller visual changes to get your teeth into, and the most significant of these sees a retooling of the app tray. Instead of scrolling sideways, it now scrolls vertically, with a search field and a list of four “favourite” apps up top, and your apps organised in alphabetical order below.

This a change to the way the app drawer looked in early versions of Marshmallow. The messy A-to-Z indexing along the left has gone, which means it’s much more neat and tidy to look at.

Android 6 Marshmallow review: Notifications and volume controls

Lollipop has come in for some criticism over the past year for the way it deals with volume control between apps, alarms and ringtones, not to mention the oddly implemented Do Not Disturb mode. Android 6 Marshmallow sets about simplifying this simple but critical part of Google’s mobile OS.

The rather confusing “None”, “Priority” and “All” links below Lollipop’s single volume control have moved to the toggles area of the Notifications dropdown menu, and have been renamed more clearly as “Do Not Disturb”.

Tap this icon to see three options, which are again much easier to understand than before: “Total silence”, “Alarms only” and “Priority only”. Much simpler. Each of these can be switched on indefinitely – “Until you turn this off” – or for a set period of time – “for 1 hour”.

That’s not all, though. The volume slider that appears whenever you click the up/down rocker buttons on your phone now has a dropdown arrow to its right, which allows you to quickly tweak media and notification volume. Another big improvement.

Android 6 Marshmallow review: Now on Tap

The most interesting new feature in Android 6 Marshmallow is “Now on Tap”, effectively an advanced, more proactive implementation of Google Now. It’s designed to work not only on information gleaned through your email and search habits, but also with any app you might have installed on your phone or tablet.

Whatever content you have on screen, be that a text message conversation, a web page or anything else, Now on Tap works in exactly the same way. A long press of the home button will capture the screen, send it up to Google’s servers, and in return you get a series of context-sensitive suggestions delivered in the form of a series of cards that pop up over the screen.

Chatting with a friend on WhatsApp about the pub you’re meeting at tonight? Now on Tap can deliver maps, web-page links and even phone numbers for the drinking establishment in question, without you having to leave the app at all.

It’s a touch hit and miss, and I’m not sure it will make a huge difference to the way we all use our smartphones, but when it does work it’s very impressive.

Android 6 Marshmallow review: Permissions, App links and under-the-hood changes

Another big change Google has made in Marshmallow is to the way Android handles permissions. Google has adopted a dual-pronged approach here, making the system both more flexible and less cumbersome to use. There are now fewer types of permission that apps can request, making the system far easier to understand, and users can now view and revoke those permissions on an individual basis.

Better still, the new system no longer requires you to agree to all permissions at the time of installation, instead asking when an app – or indeed a specific feature within an app – is used for the first time.

I suspect only a small handful of users will take the opportunity to edit permissions – the settings remain somewhat hidden away – but I can see the ability for apps to defer permission requests saving a lot of time and hassle during bulk and automatic updates.

Another feature that could have hidden benefits shows up as “App links” (formerly Domain URLs in early versions) in the Settings menu.

Effectively, this feature allows apps to “own” links from a certain website, ensuring those links always open with the same app. Thus, Twitter links will always open in the Twitter app and Facebook links in the Facebook app, and BBC iPlayer links always launch the BBC iPlayer app – unless, of course, you specify otherwise.

Again, this is far from an exotic addition, but it should have the effect of making Android less irritating, reducing the occurrences of those annoying “Open with…” messages.

Android 6 Marshmallow review: Performance and battery life

I’ve run a couple of quick benchmarks on the Nexus 6, and performance looks to be identical to when I first tested the Nexus 6 and it was running Android 5.1 Lollipop.

However, Android 6 Marshmallow’s new Doze feature does look exciting from a battery-life perspective. Building on the Project Volta improvements found in Android Lollipop, Google promises Doze will deliver dramatic savings in standby efficiency.

It works by recognising periods of low use through analysis of a device’s movement sensors, and disabling background processes accordingly. The benefits are dramatic, if you believe Google’s claims: the company’s engineers say they’ve seen standby endurance extended by a factor of two after implementing Doze on a test Nexus 9.

Android 6 Marshmallow review: Verdict

Android 6 Marshmallow isn’t the massive update that Lollipop was, even with the inclusion of Now on Tap, which is in itself a comparatively minor feature.

Still, despite the relatively minor nature of the update, there’s plenty to like here: the simplified volume and Do Not Disturb features are small but highly practical improvements, I like the way the vertically scrolling, alphabetically sorted app drawer works, and the introduction of Doze can only be a good thing.

With multi-window support and Google’s revamped Android Pay mobile-payment system coming soon, it’s certainly an update worth installing whenever you have the opportunity.

See also: Android 5 (Lollipop) review