If you are looking for Android Pie exclusive features on your Android phone, keeping reading this article, we have covered a few alternative apps that offer similar functionality.
Google released Android 9 in August 2018. Android 9 is also called Android Pie, and after months of its existence, it is still not available to all the Android smartphones.
Only a handful of flagship Smartphones from last year and the ones that are being launched in the market are getting the Android Pie update.
If you own an Android smartphone before 2017, and it’s not a flagship smartphone, it is going to take a while for your smartphone to get the Android 9 update.
And it may never happen if your smartphone is too old. Because mostly the Smartphone manufacturers offer 1 to 2 years of the update.
Android 9 brings a lot of improvement to the Android OS, Google has really done a great job in adding so many interesting features.
Thankfully, with the help of third-party apps, you can get most of the features to work on any Android, even if it is a year or two old.
Get the Android Pie pixel launcher
There are quite a number of third-party app launches available for Android, but if we have to talk about a near perfect Pixel Launcher then it has to be Rootless Launcher.
You don’t have to do much apart from installing the Rootless Launcher on your smartphone and you will be getting the exact launcher look of the Android Pie Pixel Launcher.
Install the Rootless Launcher from Play Store
You also need this app (download link) in order to get the full functionality of the Android Pie Launcher.
Get the Android Pie Notification Shade
Android Pie brings the biggest update when it comes to the notification area. Google has revamped the entire Notification Pane, which is exclusive to the Android Pie.
You can install this app from Google Play Store it is called Power Shade which is available for free.
The app requires certain permissions to replicate the Android Pie notification panel. You can also change the notification theme.
For example, you can change the background colour, the foreground colour or add transparency can do much more.
The year 2018 saw a big change in the screen resolutions of smartphones, and mostly all the Smartphone manufacturers removed the physical touch buttons and brought the on-screen buttons along with some gestures to navigate.
Android Pie brought the gestures to the stock OS so that you can navigate through your Android smartphone just like on iPhone X.
But you can use gesture navigation even if you do not have got the Android Pie update on your smartphone.
There has been an app that is developed by XDA developers which adds gesture navigations for Android.
You can also hide the default on-screen navigation buttons using some tools providing in the download link below.
Install this app from Play Store (Video Tutorial)
Get the Android Pie Volume Slider
Another useful update in Android Pie is the volume slider. When you press the volume button you get a sleek virtual volume control, just on the side of your screen so that you can easily control it using your thumb.
It is quite a thoughtful feature and is pretty useful for turning the volume up and down.
This exact feature can be incorporated into non-Android Pie smartphones using an app called Volume slider like Android P volume control.
Install it from the Play Store. ($0.99)
Enhance your security on your Android smartphone with lockdown mode
Lockdown is the new security feature in Android Pie OS which disables the Fingerprints Scanner along with the Face Unlock and also hides the lock screen content and you have to Re-type your Password or Pattern to access the device.
If you do not have got the Android Pie update on your smartphone, you can alternatively use the Lockdown App which is available on APK mirror.
The Lockdown App has the similar function, although you will not get the shortcut by pressing the power button, you can place an icon on your home screen, tapping which will give you the options to secure your smartphone.
Get Smart Reply feature on your Android
Google has been trying to make its OS even smarter and it has taken it to the next level with the Android 9 by incorporating their smart reply Technology.
It quickly gives you automated responses based on machine learning and Artificial Intelligence and you can simply tap on the automated message to reply instead of typing the message on your own.
The feature was earlier available on individual apps, but it is now available in Android Pie. And you can use it anywhere. I have tested it and it is quite accurate, will most of the times.
For the non-Android Pie users, there is a smart reply APK available that you can install on your non-Android Pie Smartphone and get this exciting feature.
PiP mode for YouTube
Another most talked about feature is the PIP mode for YouTube, if you want to use it on your smartphone and you do not have Android Pie update, you can still play YouTube videos in the background.
We have earlier mentioned about an amazing app called by music that lets you play songs from YouTube as a normal music player.
If that’s not what you are looking for, and you really want the picture in picture mode where you can still watch the video while doing other things on your smartphone, you can download the YouTube Vanced, which is available for both Rooted as well as on Non-rooted Android smartphones.
And one of its features is to play YouTube videos in PiP mode.
YouTube vanced for Non-rooted Android smartphones
YouTube vanced for Rooted Android smartphones
You will get the instructions to download and install the apps on the XDA form page itself.
Get the ambient display feature like Android Pie
You can get the Dynamic Notifications app from Play Store, the app ads in overlay above your lock screen, which includes Android Pie ambient display features like ‘Lift to check phone’ and ‘Wake screen when receiving notification’.
There are other customisation options available in the app as well which can be unlocked by paying $1.99.
So these are some of the best features of Android pie and his how you can get them on any Android smartphone.
It’s a great feeling to have all these exclusive features on a smartphone which won’t even get the Android Pie update in its lifetime.
