Just this week, Google has finally decided to roll out the fourth and final developer preview version of its Android O, the upcoming newest version of the world’s most widely used mobile operating system. As far as anyone can see, this latest developer preview does not offer any significant updates. The good news is that Google has confirmed that the launch of Android O is right on schedule, and is expected to make its formal debut later this summer. Officially, summer will end less than a couple of months from now, but Android O could be deployed some time in August.
Due to the fact that the previous developer preview (the third one) already offered the final application program interfaces (APIs), the most recent preview is more about minor updates and tweaks in terms of stability. Thus, all the core Android software development kits (SDKs), tools, and the Android emulator will receive slight improvements in the days to come, while the Android Support Library (officially, version 26.0.0) is now glitch free, mostly. Considering that this is the final preview, the aim now is to encourage developers of apps to conduct trials on their part before the final release is made available to every Android mobile user in the planet.
There is a lot of excitement for Android O, on account of the new features it brings for mobile users. For starters, the latest iteration is expected to provide both users and developers enhanced support for notifications and alerts across the operating system, plus better support for picture in picture, and auto fill, just to name a few. There are also new features that are designed to facilitate more battery power efficiency.
The fourth and final developer preview of Android O is now made available by way of an over the air update for regular mobile users as well, that is if they have the guts to to install a pre-release version on their device. The developer preview will run on handsets such as the Pixel, the Pixel XL, the Pixel C, the Nexus 5X, the Nexus 6P, and the Nexus Player.
By the way, the current version of Android (version 7, also known as Nougat) now enjoys about an 11.5 percent share in the entire Android mobile market. Much has been said about how any new version of Android takes some time to get to to users’ devices, but Google has since introduced some measures to expedite the updating process.
