Android 6.0 Marshmallow

Main Features

Android Marshmallow is visually similar to its predecessor, Lollipop, in many ways. Google’s Material Design language is now more pervasive than ever before and the main areas of the UI – settings, notifications shade and navigation – remain the same. But Marshmallow does have some differences in appearance and new features.

Doze

Doze is, after Google Now on Tap, perhaps the biggest thing in Marshmallow. Doze is an intelligent battery management feature that recognizes when your device is not is use, like when it has been lying on a bedside table for a while, and enters hibernation.

It’s more complicated than that, of course, but the battery savings are phenomenal. Where other devices lose an average of 15-25 percent of battery life overnight, Marshmallow can take that down to 3-5 percent, taking your standby time to nearly two weeks in the process

Furthermore, manufacturers won’t be able to mess with Doze mode. This doesn’t mean that manufactures can’t still apply their own battery saver modes to their skins of stock Android, but device standby will only be handled by an unmodified Doze.

Type-C and reverse charging

Marshmallow also supports the new standard, USB Type-C. Type-C cables are reversible – so you won’t have to worry about fumbling around with your charging cable in the dark – and they also support faster data transfer and charging speeds.

Not many devices have USB Type-C ports yet, and not all are shipping with true Type-C cables and adapters (many are simply reconfigured USB 2.0 cables). But Marshmallow is future-proofing itself by including Type-C support and the new USB Power Delivery specification, meaning Marshmallow devices will also be able to reverse-charge other devices.

App permissions

This is one of the unsexy but incredibly important parts of Android Marshmallow. The Android system now offers user-facing controls over some, but not all, app permissions. While iOS has had this feature for years, Android is only now catching up.

Some basic permissions – internet access, for example – are still granted by default, but generally speaking you will be asked to grant individual app permissions the first time an app attempts to access them.

This means you are in control of whether or not an app has access to something as critical as your microphone or camera. Some apps might not work properly with certain permissions disabled, but the onus is on the app developers to stabilize their apps without all permissions granted, not on you to accept what you might feel are unnecessary permissions.

Permissions for a particular app can be viewed within the settings menu (which permissions an app does or doesn't have) or by permission type (so you can see how many apps have access to your contacts, for example). Viewing by permission type is slightly hard to get to, but at least that will stop accidental changes from being made.

And many other features has launched with this android version to make android better.