Category: Android O

With the release of the first Developer Preview of Android O, the question most people want to know the answer for is when it will be available for the masses?  According to Google, that will be Q3 of 2017.  Google, much like they did with Android Nougat, is being very transparent about their timelines and have published it in the O Program Overview.  Basically it will breakdown like this:

• Preview 1 which is the initial release and considered alpha (do not install it on your daily driver!)
• Preview 2 will be an incremental update and the first beta of Android O
• Preview 3 will bring us the final APIs and the official SDK.  At this point, developers will be able to published their Android O compatible apps
• Preview 4 will be the near-final image for final testing
• Final Release will be the AOSP build and ecosystem release.  This is when the public will get it and OEMs will get it to start prepping their devices images.

This pattern follows much of what Google did with Android Nougat so there aren’t a lot of surprises here to be found.

A bit unexpected, Google has announced the Developer Preview of the next generation of Android, Android O.  The program is designed for those who want to check out what is coming in the next version as well as developers who want to start preparing their apps for the build.  It is not intended for general consumption and should not be considered a beta!  At this point, Android O is very much an alpha or even pre-alpha build and I highly recommend non-developer readers not to install it on their daily devices.  To give you an idea of just how alpha this build is, it isn’t even in the Android Beta program yet.  That’s still focused on Android Nougat 7.1.2.

On the preview page, Google highlights five key areas in which O will be focused:  Notification channels, picture-in-picture viewing, autofill, adaptive icons and multi-display support.  All of these are aimed at making the platform more flexible and considering that Android now runs on Chrome OS, the ability to do some of these things will become ever increasing in importance.