The Android O Developer Preview has been announced ahead of Google I/O. Read the latest news and rumours about the 2017 Android O name, features and UK launch date.
Google has done it again, releasing the Developer Preview of its next Android operating system ahead of its annual Google I/O developer’s conference – exciting news for the increasing number of Android users across the globe.
According to new research from StatCounter, Android is now the world’s number-one operating system for getting online, ahead of both Windows and iOS. In March 2017 it had 39.93 percent market share, versus Windows‘ 37.91 percent.
The first build of Android O offers insight into what’s coming next to the mobile OS. However, you won’t find the update on the Android Beta site. In fact you won’t be able to use this site at all right now, since Google has ended the Android N beta programme, which may suggest an Android O public beta will be available very soon – likely at Google I/O next week.
The first build is available for Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel C, Pixel and Pixel XL, but must be manually flashed on to a device and is not intended for consumer use. Also see: How to download Android O
The final version of Android N was released in August 2016 as Android Nougat, and we’re looking at a similar time frame in 2017 for the release of Android O, for which we will hear more details at Google I/O on 17 May.
Read on for more information on what we know about Android O so far.
Following Android Alpha and Android Beta, Google has always named its Android OS updates after sweet treats, and in alphabetical order. So far we’ve had Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb, Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean, KitKat, Lollipop, Marshmallow and Nougat.
In 2017 Google will be looking for a sweet treat beginning with O. Trouble is, there really aren’t that many. The Tech Advisor team could come up with Oreo, Orange, Oatcake and Oh! Henry (the latter obviously being our favourite, given this) . It could even shake things up entirely and shock us all with something like Android OMG. (We’re joking, but we kind of like it.)
Google’s Hiroshi Lockheimer has been stirring things up on Twitter, seemingly suggesting Android Oreo is the most likely candidate. But is he pulling our leg? Quite possibly, given he has also tweeted an image of Pocky (chocolate cream covered biscuit sticks) with the caption #2018. Also see: Essential Android apps and Best Android games
A week later he was at it again. Is he pulling our leg?
Trouble is, there are few sweet treats we can think of beginning with an O, so it could well be Android Oreo as rumoured.
What do you think the next version of Android will be called? (If you choose Other comment below and let us know what you think.)
Given that Android Marshmallow was Android 6.0 and Android Nougat was Android 7.0-7.1, we would assume that Android O will be Android 8.0. But Google hasn’ t always done things this way, and Ice Cream Sandwich, Jelly Bean and KitKat were all 4.x updates. Also see: Android Nougat review
Traditionally Google uses Google I/O to announce the new update to its Android OS. The 11th annual I/O conference will take place between 17 and 19 May 2017 at the Shoreline Amphitheatre in Mountain View, California.
Google surprised us in 2016 by taking the wraps off the Developer Preview of Android Nougat in advance of its summer Google I/O conference, and in March 2017 it has done the same again with Android O.
The final release of Android N came in August 2016 with little fanfare and no new hardware, so the chances are we’ll see the company follow that same format in 2017. (The new hardware came later, with the Google Pixel and Pixel XL unveiled in early October.)
We expect the first public beta to be made available at Google I/O next week, and our money is on an August release for Android O, with the new Pixel 2 coming later in September or October. Also see: Android Nougat vs iOS 10
With the release of the Android O Developer Preview several new features have been confirmed.
Many of the new features regard notifications, and in Android O we will see user-customisable notification channels whereby alerts are grouped by type. Users will be able to snooze notifications, and devs can set time limits for notifications to time out. Also adjustable will be the background colours of notifications, and the messaging style.
In Android Nougat Google introduced the ability to restrict certain app activities in the background, and in Android O it improves on this by placing the priority on extending battery life without user-input.
Users will have to opt in to this service, but will then find it easier to fill in login and credit-card information forms with fewer mistakes and much less repetition.
Picture-in-picture, which is already available on Android TV, is coming to Android O. This is mostly used for video playback.
Android O won’t be restricted to phones, so there will be improved arrow and tab key navigation for when used with a physical keyboard .
Icons in Android O will support visual effects and can be displayed in various shapes on different devices.
Wi-Fi Aware will allows apps and nearby devices to discover and communicate over Wi-Fi without an internet access point. We’ll also see improved Bluetooth support for high-quality audio through the Sony LDAC codec, and new ways for third-party calling apps to work with each other and with your network operator’s special features.
We discussed Android O in our podcast:
Interestingly, Android O will be able to support multiple displays, allowing a user to move an activity to one screen to the next.
Every app will have a storage space quota for cached data, and when the system needs to free up disk space it will delete data from apps using more than their allocated quota first.
Google says it has made the profile owner and device owner management modes more powerful, productive and easier to provision than ever, with highlights including the ability to use a managed profile on a corporate-owned device and enterprise management for file-based encryption.
You can read about the new updates coming to Android O in more detail over on the Android Developer’s site .
We were already aware of a few user-facing features coming to Android O thanks to a tip-off from VentureBeat, though there was no confirmation that they would make it through to the final build.
This feature is expected to ease copying text from one app and pasting it within another by giving suggestions in the second app as to what you might be about to type based on what you were doing in the previous app. VentureBeat gives the example of finding a restaurant in the Yelp app, then opening a text conversation, beginning to type ‚It’s at‘ and the restaurant name popping up as a suggested term. It is currently unclear whether it will be a new feature on the Gboard virtual keyboard or baked into Android itself.
Right now it isn’t possible to share your current location on Android as it is in iOS, but according to VentureBeat there are some new changes coming that make dealing with addresses easier. If you click on an address in a text message, in Android N it does nothing but in Android O it could open that address in Google Maps. It says it is not yet known whether this will be functional only in Google’s Messages app, or in all messaging apps on Android O.
Today you can quickly call up your contacts using Ok Google, but in Android O you will be able to draw onscreen the letter C to open your contacts menu.
