It’s a great way to kick the tires and see what the update is all about
As is tradition with every I/O developer conference, Google has announced Android O, the next iteration of their hugely successful mobile operating system. While the company hasn’t assigned a numerical value to their upcoming Android update or an obscure dessert name yet, Google has detailed several features of Android O that will come to phones in the future.
#AndroidO will bring more fluid experiences to mobile screens, along with improved “vitals” like battery life and security. #io17 pic.twitter.com/GdhPChWpAr
— Google (@Google) May 17, 2017
Front and center are Fluid Experiences and Vitals. Fluid Experiences do exactly what it sounds like – they’re a set of features that make the user experience flow seamlessly. This includes a new picture-in-picture mode, Notification dots which summarizes notifications in apps via long taps as well as new smart selection and autofill options that use contextual clues to pick up what you’re trying to copy and paste, saving you the frustration and the hassle of pecking on your screen.
Vitals, on the other hand, deal with the stuff under the hood, which ensures that Android O is faster than ever before. While most of the work done in this area is pretty much invisible to the end user, Google has launched Google Play Protect, a new security feature in Google Play that scans your phone’s apps making sure it’s virus and malware free.
You can now download the new Android O Developer Preview 2 to see what all the fuss is about here. Compatible devices include The Nexus 5X, 6P and Player, as well as the Pixel, Pixel XL and Pixel C.