Android O Introduces Notification Badges on Homescreen

Most XDA users are undoubtedly familiar with Nova Launcher, one of the most flexible launcher alternatives on Android. Those that know Nova also know its ancient notification badges feature through TeslaUnread, which mimics functionality found on other mobile operating systems.

Such a feature is finally coming to Android, though you won’t get to enjoy it yet. Android O Preview 1 supports notification badges on the homescreen, and you can enable or disable the feature on a per-app basis straight from the settings, independent of your launcher of choice. However, this feature needs to me manually enabled by developers, and due to this we are unable to test it to figure out how it works.

There’s not much that the settings menu tells us, but it’s an interesting addition and a small extra feature we are adding to the list, alongside more customization options like a light theme, navigation bar tweaking and lockscreen shortcut editing. It seems Google is adopting many of the features we’ve enjoyed for a while through modifications at XDA — and this isn’t a bad thing, assuming the final implementations are polished and extensive-enough.

It hasn’t been very long since the Android O preview came out, but we are already unveiling awesome features coming to the next version of Android. For more coverage on all things Android O, stay tuned to XDA.