Motorola’s DROID announcements witnessed a couple of new software implementations – Active Display and Touchless Control; and the Moto X will be blessed with both these features and more. Let’s take a look at the major additions in more detail.
The Active Display is a very interesting new feature indeed, as it will utilize the AMOLED screen in a very effective manner, reducing battery drain on the Moto X to a bare minimum. It gives the user alerts and other notifications without actually waking the device. The new display system will light up only the exact pixels required to flash the alerts on the screen, thus dramatically reducing battery consumption. Also, the device has a built-in awareness feature, which enables it in knowing exactly when the device is in a call, lying face down or simply tucked into your pocket. In such situations, the phone will refrain from showing alerts and notifications. This results in an intelligent system wherein the user is shown notifications only when he is likely to see them.
Further, new gesture controls have been added to these notifications. Dragging a notification down will unlock the device and the app that caused the notification will be launched straightaway. Dragging a notification up, on the other hand, provides the user with more details about the notification. As usual, dragging left or right will erase the notification. Further customization is possible with the control settings provided for Active Display. The user will be able to selectively allow notifications based on application categories. Sleep times can also be allotted, during which no notifications will be shown at all.
Touchless Control is the other major new feature, and is essentially a fancy way of using Google Now through voice activation. The Moto X will recognize the user’s voice, allowing activation of Google Now without waking the device or using the screen. This voice activation mechanism will function even when the device is asleep. However, what still remains to be seen is the degree of freedom this concept of Touchless Control will allow.
Apart from these two features, the Moto X will also have Motorola Connect, Motorola Migrate, Motorola Assist and Lost Phone Tracking. Motorola Connect syncs the Moto X to a computer (using a Google Chrome extension), thus seamlessly linking phone calls and text messages between the two. It also allows users to send text messages and receive calls at their desks. Motorola Migrate helps users to set up their new device. It basically transfers all important data such as text messages, call history, contacts, media, settings etc. to the new phone using a play store app by the same name.
Overall, the new software additions in the Moto X package promise to be very handy indeed, and will hopefully be less gimmick-y than the ones introduced by Samsung.
