Google releases beta of Android O

Google released the public beta of Android O on Wednesday. The company demonstrated some new features of the OS, such as the ability to show notifications from apps by holding down the app icon.

Google divides the new features into the Fluid Experiences and Vitals categories. Fluid Experiences should improve the user experience. An example of this with Android O is the introduction of Notification Dots. Small dots in the icon of apps indicate that there is a notification with that app. This can be displayed or called up from the notification screen by pressing and holding the icon.

Google also demonstrated picture-in-picture during the I/O meeting. Users can keep a video window open and continue with other activities at the same time. In addition, the company showed Autofill in apps: from O, it no longer only works in Chrome, but can be used in all apps. The OS also gets the option for smart text selection: for example, the software recognizes addresses and selects them automatically.

The Vitals category includes, for example, Google Play Protect, which makes security more visible, for example by showing that apps have been scanned. Furthermore, Google has not only improved the battery life at ‘O’, but also the start-up time: the Pixel would start up twice as fast. Google will bring TensorFlowLite to Android smartphones later this year. Functions based on machine learning can use the hardware of the smartphone for this, where they still have to hook up to Google’s servers. Google also received applause for announcing that Android will receive support for the Kotlin programming language from JetBrains, in addition to Java and C++.

Google previously announced features of Android O. One of the features is the arrival of notification channels. These are collections of notifications of a certain category. Among other things, users can set whether a category should sound, be shown on the lock screen, temporarily snooze, and so on.

Furthermore, the OS brings support for multiple screens, better keyboard handling, support for color profiles, support for Sony’s ldac and Qualcomms aptX and aptX-HD bluetooth audio codecs, and support for dynamic icon shapes.

Also important is the arrival of Project Treble. Google makes it easier for smartphone manufacturers to update devices to a new Android version by removing the ‘vendor implementation’ from the Android OS Framework. This should ensure faster updates, something that Android has been under fire for years.

Google is making the public beta, or second developer preview, of Android O available immediately for the Nexus 5X, 6P , Pixel, Pixel XL, and Pixel C. The release should be sometime in the third quarter. Nougat came out in mid-August last year.