Tag: Developer Preview

The fourth Developer Preview and 3rd beta of Android P has been released to those in the Android Beta Program today.  The update is a few days later than expected.  According to the timeline Google published when Android P was announced, Developer Preview 4 was slated for a late June release.

The update is just under 300 MB and is already rolling out to those who have devices registered in the Beta Program.  I currently have my Google Pixel XL in the program and the OTA update has already been received and installed.  As far as new things are concerned, you won’t find much.  There are a tweaks here and there throughout the build but no major feature changes.

In a somewhat unexpected move, Google has released the first Developer Preview of Android P, the next major version of the platform.  While it was expected to be released this month, perhaps even on 3/14 (Pi… get it?), it seems that the wait for this alpha build was much shorter than expected.

Before going into the details of what is new in this build, let me first be very clear.  This build is alpha.  It is not going to be stable and, in fact, is not even supported in the Android beta program.  In order to get it, you have to side-load it so it is really intended for app developers only.  If you really, really, really want to download it, you can do so here but brace yourself.  It is not going to be a smooth experience.  Also, keep in mind that this alpha build is only available for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.

Today the second Developer Preview of Android Oreo 8.1 was released to those in the Android Beta Program.  The update brings the November 2017 Android Security Update to the beta program and OTA updates for those with devices enrolled should start flowing today and throughout the next few days.

This will be the last Developer Preview of Oreo 8.1 before it is generally released next month.  You can read about all the major updates & changes coming in Oreo 8.1 here.

The 2nd preview more-or-less fixes bugs and other issues found in the first preview released last month.  The new Pixel Visual Core, which was not in DP1, is now enabled in this second preview.  For those that are familiar with this feature, it is Google’s first co-processor for image processing and Machine Learning.  Currently it is only available in the Pixel 2 lineup.

The final beta build of Android O has been released today by the Android team to those in the Android Beta Program.  Build OPP4.170623.014 is rolling out to devices now with it having the final API levels (API level 26) along with finishing touches on the platform overall.

In a post on the Android Developer blog, Vice President of Engineering David Burke indicated that this is being considered by Google as a Release Candidate.  That means that it is both very stable and very little, barring a major bug being found, will stop it from being released in short order.

Developer Preview 4 is a release candidate build of Android O that you can use to complete your development and testing in time for the upcoming official release. It includes the final system behaviors, the latest bug fixes and optimizations, and the final APIs (API level 26)

To be clear, the new APIs were introduced in Developer Preview 3 so this confirms that they are indeed final.

The Android N Developer Preview 4 was released earlier this afternoon and now those registered in the Android Beta program are seeing the OTA come to their devices.  The update brings build NPD56N to your Nexus device and weighs in at a lightweight 168MB.  The update brings all of the fixes and enhancements to the beta that I outlined earlier and, of course, brings the final API set to the device.