The Paranoid Android team has publicly announced their goal to change the way they create the custom ROM, but that never meant they will stop innovating on changes that make sense. Now the team is teasing its fance with a notification implementation codenamed “Peek” that it believes will revolutionize the way we interact with notifications.
The term active notifications arose from the Moto X’s unique Active Display feature. Basically this allows users to see notifications on their devices without having to unlock the device or even turn on the whole area of the display, at least in the case of the Moto X. Paranoid Android’s implementation takes that feature one step further and makes it more convenient, thanks to the power of motion sensors.
The developers claim that the inspiration behind Peek came from the convenience of a smartwatch, where you can just take a quick glance at a notification, without much fuss or effort. In effect, Peek starts monitoring movement whenever a notification arrives so that it can determine if the smartphone has been, say, lifted off the table or taken out of a pocket. Basically any movement that can be interpreted as the user wanting to see the notification. If it detects movement within 10 seconds, it then displays the minimalistic notification on the display ala Active Notifications. Users simply need to click or swipe the notification to unlock the screen and automatically launch the associated app.
It is features like these that make using custom ROMs worthwhile, especially when they have little or no chance of being implemented in stock Android, within a resonable timeframe. Of course, this Peek feature is still under heavy development and details, as well as screenshots and videos, are likely to emerge once Paranoid Android starts polishing it up for release.
SOURCE: +Paranoid Android
Peek is available right now in the new Paranoid Android 4.2 Beta 1 update.