Android O Preview four is out—next forestall, final release

Google has just introduced the availability of the fourth and final Android O Developer Preview.

As regular, the preview is to be had for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, and the Android Emulator.

Like the 1/3 preview, we are not anticipating a good deal in UI adjustments on this launch. It will try to discover, but this preview is a bit stronger and more performant than the 0.33 release with any luck. Our Pixel XL test tool has an amazing-gradual digicam, frequent crashes, and plenty of Bluetooth issues strolling the third preview.

The Android O APIs had been stable considering launch three, so the important news with these launches seems to be a steady release of version 26 of the Android Support Library. Despite the call, the Android Support Library is a collection of libraries developers can upload to their apps to deliver some of the present Android capabilities to an app, regardless of the host OS model. Support Library 26 brings new physics-based animations, downloadable fonts and emojis, and a car-sizing TextView.
This preview seems a bit past due. Google’s schedule has previews pegged each month, but they have come at the start or center of the month. With the fourth preview, Google simplest has more days left in July. Next up is the reputable Android 8.0 “O” launch, which Google says can be out “later this summertime.”

The First Android O beta (and 2nd preview overall) was formally launched.

MOUNTAIN VIEW, Calif.—Google I/O is just starting, and Google has announced the second Android O device preview. This model is formally a “beta,” which means it will robotically go out to everyone enrolled in the Android Beta Program. Like the primary preview, the beta runs on recent Nexus and Pixel gadgets: the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, Pixel C, Pixel, and Pixel XL.

The first preview of Android O released all of the manners lower back in March, bringing a new settings page, snooze-able notifications, a heritage processing lockdown, and a gaggle of different capabilities. Sooner or later, Google separated the OS from the hardware and wrapped the Android OS in a modular base called “Project Treble.” While the enterprise didn’t highlight many new capabilities onstage at I/O, it did point out Android Go, a new configuration for Android O phones with 1GB or much less RAM.
The preliminary Android O preview roadmap still holds: Android O can have a Q3 2017 release, with two extra preview releases between now and then. We’ll be putting in the beta and digging deeper later this week.

Android O Developer Preview 3 releases, finalizes APIs.

Less than a month after the discharge of the second Android O developer preview, Google is returned, dropping yet every other version of the OS on us. The 0.33 developer preview should be rolling out to beta gadgets now, and together with an update to the Android Studio SDK, it finalizes the APIs for Android O.

Android O revamps the notification panel with snooze notifications and a new settings app. There’s less difficulty updating with Project Treble, redesigned emoji, and a low-cease telephone configuration called “Android Go.” Phones get picture-in-image mode, Android TV receives a brand new home display screen, and quicker boot instances should help each version, but motors with Android must mainly take advantage of it.

The Android O APIs are now formally finalized as “API level 26.” With the finalized APIs, Google says developers must check out apps to ensure they still work after the modifications to heritage limits, networking, and protection. The Play Store is also ready to take API Level 26 apps and send them to users.

The Android O release timeline. We’re getting near the very last!

Enlarge / The Android O release timeline. We’re getting close to the very last!
The O Developer Preview is available for the Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, and Nexus Player. Users signed up for the Android Beta Program should receive a replacement any day now. There are also updated system photos for guide flashing. We’re nevertheless due for one extra preview in July, and Google says the patron launch could be “later in the summer season.”

Google is operating on a new Android camera API that supports Camera RAW.

The Nexus 5 camera was greatly disappointing, particularly after high-ranking Googler Vic Gundotra remarks, “We’re dedicated to making Nexus phones extremely super cameras. You wait and see.”

That came nine months ago. We waited and saw, and what was confirmed on the Nexus Five wasn’t excellent. There may be an explanation for this, although. According to commits within the public Android source code, which Josh Brown first noticed on Google+, Google is operating on a new digital camera API for Android. Work on the new API started in December 2012, making it appear centered for KitKat. Still, approximately a month before the new OS’s release, the API was pulled from Android’s framework code. The devote eliminated the API from the discharge. Android code is here, with the remark pronouncing:
DO NOT MERGE: Hide new camera API.

Not yet geared up.

Bug: 11141002
This devotion was pushed on October eleven, about a month earlier than the discharge of KitKat. A month before launch changed into possibly “feature freeze” time, wherein paintings on new capabilities stop, and everyone focuses on fixing insects in time for release. The Camera revamp did not make it and changed with the original digital camera API.

The initial commit is the proper stuff, incorporating lots of documentation for the brand-new Digicam setup. There is a unique API magnificence called “Android.Hardware.Pictures” (the modern-day camera functionality lives underneath “android.Hardware.Digital camera”), and with the fancier name comes fancier abilities:

Full-capability gadgets allow consistent with-body control of capture hardware and publish-processing parameters at high-frame quotes. They additionally provide output data at high resolution in uncompressed formats, further to compressed JPEG output.
The new Digicam API has a backward-compatibility mode for older devices; however, “full-capability” devices now have admission to 3 new picture codecs. The only new photo layout listed that isn’t present in Jelly Bean appears to be helpful for camera RAW:

General RAW camera sensor photo format, usually representing a single-channel Bayer-mosaic photo. Each pixel color sample is stored with 16 bits of precision.
The coloration mosaic format, the maximum and minimal encoding values of the RAW pixel facts, the shaded area of the image, and all the different needed records to interpret a RAW sensor photo need to be queried from the @link android.Hardware.Photography.CameraDevice, which produced the picture.
Smartphone cameras normally output JPEG documents, which can be compressed, usually finalized images. RAW is minimally compressed and unprocessed, so shooting in RAW gives the photographer an awful lot of extra flexibility after the photograph is shot. Programs like Photoshop can do more with a RAW file than a JPEG.

Camera RAW isn’t always remarkable on a mobile smartphone; for instance, Nokia’s upcoming Lumia 1520 might be able to shoot RAW. Besides making Photoshoppers very happy, the RAW record can be handed to an even more effective onboard image editor, which Google seems keen on building into Android and Google+.

The new API additionally helps face detection. This feature includes bounding containers around faces and center eye and mouth coordinates. In addition to the face-awareness abilities, the machine can assign precise IDs to each face (provided they live on the display screen), so developers should post stupid hats to multiple fronts in a video feed. While you may have visible face detection on some Android devices, the ones had been all solutions constructed by way of Android OEMs.

There’s help for burst mode, too—some other feature you would swear turned into already protected in Android but is not. On Nexus devices, the best “burst mode” entails the consumer urgent the shutter button without a doubt fast.

The camera device is detachable and disconnected from the Android device, or the Digicam service has close down the relationship due to a better-precedence get right of entry to request the Digicam tool.
The strangest new feature probably guides for a removable digicam. We cannot remember a single Android device of any type with a detachable camera, so experience loose to go away your recommendations inside the remarks.

The most vital possible improvement that wouldn’t be seen within the source code: photograph fine. Android cameras arguably lag in the back of the iPhone is nice, so this new API may be Google’s option for that problem. Android’s subpar photograph best appears to be throughout-the-board trouble, so perhaps the difficulty sincerely is as low-stage because of the Digicam API. There’s no manner to be sure, even though, until we get finished with software and devices in our arms. With documentation using terms like “substantially progressed skills” and “excellent-grain control,” it sincerely appears that Google is out to restore Android’s digital-imaging woes.