Nougat's notification system is now a requirement for Android device makers

If you are an Android handset maker, you no longer can mess around with the operating system’s notification features. That is what was discovered in the latest update to Google’s Compatibility Definition Document for Android, with the new requirements made for smartphones that use Nougat 7.1.1.

While there was no indication that any of the many, many Android hardware OEMs was going to mess around with the operating system’s notification features, this new requirement from Google, as posted first by Android Police, will now allow all of these phones to have a more consistent experience going forward.

The rules now state that handset makers “MUST support the behaviors of updating, removing, replying to, and bundling notifications”. These rules include the “control notifications directly in the notification shade” along with the “visual affordance to trigger the control panel in the notification shade.” The rules also state phone makers must put in “the ability to BLOCK, MUTE and RESET notification preference from a package, both in the inline control panel as well as in the settings app.”

Again, there’s no word that these kinds of features were in any danger of not being used by Android device makers, but it’s clear that Google doesn’t want them to be tampered with in any way.