Google Announces Android O Developer Previews

Android O is here! It was about this time last year that Google decided to release developer previews for Android N, now known as Nougat. Obviously Android O doesn't have a delicious name just yet, but they are still mixing the batter before they bake and finish the final product.

I'm sure all of you are wondering what's changing in Android. The answer is...quite a bit. Just to outline a few:

• Background Limits: This will allow better battery life by more strictly limiting what apps and services are allowed to do.

• Notification Channels: Essentially this allows for better notification bundling, compactness, and user control.

•  PIP (Picture In Picture): This was supported in Android TV in Android Nougat, but now its natively going to be supported in all of Android.

• New Settings for the System UI Tuner: The System UI tuner has gotten a lot more useful and powerful. You can control the layout of your navigation keys and even customize shortcuts for the new added buttons- Extra Left and Extra Right buttons.

•  Custom Shortcuts for App Icons: App icon shortcuts were added in Android Nougat and now they are becoming more powerful. With the ability to customize what shortcuts appear when you long press your icons, this becomes a much more powerful way to access app functions much easier.

• Notification Badges: This is something iOS has had for years and if your an iPhone user, you will immediately take notice. When you have a new notification a badge with a number will appear to alert you on the app icon, on the home screen of how many new notifications you have.

There is even rumored to be Theme support natively in Android O! this could also be a huge addition. Being able to create and share themes to your friends, would allow for almost complete customization of your phone.

Since these are developer previews some stuff will break. I do not recommend that you flash it to your Pixel or Nexus phones if you use them as your daily use phones. Also don't get use to everything you see in the developer preview, it could be gone in the next preview.

Follow this link to download the developer previews- Android Developers