Google has released its timeline for the Developer Preview of Android P. Much like last year, the Android team is targeting Q3 for final release of the new platform, but before that happens, we’ll have five previews in total.
We can expect Preview 2 to launch in early May, right around the time Google I/O happens (May 8-10). After that, final APIs will be published in Preview 3, with Preview 4 appearing to follow shortly thereafter.
Some new things in Android P
- Can take screenshot from power menu.
- Transition animations are way slicker in apps.
- Can seamlessly edit screenshots, seems to use photo editing.
- Clock on the left.
- Quickly toggles are no longer paged. You can scroll up and down through them and then dismiss them by touching the indicator under them.
- (Feature?) Snapchat doesn’t seem horribly broken on DP1 for the first time ever.
- The whole system feels much more fluent and polished. The rumor about making Android seem as polished as ios has merit.
- UI performance was chunky at first, but seems to have smoothed out (og pixel VZW)
- Apparently there’s a better screenshot editing tool
- All settings apparently have notch themes. Those threw me off guard, but left them in the recording.
- Tested the screenshot editing system app on an older version of Android. Installs but doesn’t function. I still haven’t gotten it to show up on mine at all so YMMV. Maybe someone at XDA will packport?
- Bug? All navigation buttons show on camera I even when device is locked.
- Selecting a button animates more like it did in lollipop.
- Text zoom allow iOS when moving cursor!!
- Adaptive brightness have now moved the brightness slider
- If you rotate the phone and you have an auto rotation disabled, it shows a rotation button in the navbar for a few seconds. Pressing it rotates the phone and locks it in the rotation, until you press it again or enable auto rotation.
Looks
Settings menu gets a new look
New notifications slide menu
Screenshot Editor
