With Android Nougat now only weeks away from release, developers are starting to prepare their apps for support of the release. Google is no exception and the latest update to their clock and alarm app, Google Clock, is squarely aimed at getting it ready for Nougat. The update, which is in the Play Store now, also works on Lollipop and Marshmallow but a lot of the focus is on Nougat to be fair. In fact, the first thing noted in the Release Notes is support for Nougat. With that support comes support for multi-screen, the new feature that will come in the release that allows you to view more than one app at a time. Google Clock will support that natively so you can setup timers or alarms while working on with another app.
The app now also supports direct boot. This means that alarms will fire even when the phone is locked after booting. Why is this important? Most of us have had a time where our phone just
Google Clock Supports Multi-Screen in Nougat
randomly reboots. This feature means that even in that scenario, the alarm will still activate after the phone has rebooted but remains locked. That’s important if you are asleep and need that wake up alarm to catch that flight.
Finally, there is also a new warning that tells you within Google Clock when your device settings will prevent an alarm from sounding. If you have your phone in Do Not Disturb in total silence, you will see a small pop-up telling you that your phone is in this state and you will not hear the alarm. That feature works on all builds of Android that update to this version of the app.
If you have Google Clock installed, you should see the update via an OTA over the course of the next few days.
