We finally have a name for Google’s latest mobile operating system: Android Oreo.
The latest version of Android, previously codenamed Android O, was announced in March. The software has been in preview for a few months so developers could update their apps.
The Android 8.0 Oreo will first be available on Google devices, including the Pixel and Nexus lines. The launch date has not yet been set but the announcement was released yesterday at 19:50 BST to coincide with the solar eclipse visible on the east coast of the United States
The new operating system name continues Google’s tradition of naming its Android updates after sweets. Previous names include Nougat, Marshmallow, and Lollipop.
So what’s in Android Oreo?
Developers have focused on creating fluid experiences that make Android even more powerful and easy to use, such as:
Picture-in-picture: lets users manage two tasks simultaneously on any size screen, and it’s easy for apps to support it.
Notification dots which extend the reach of notifications and offer a new way to surface activity in your apps. Dots work with zero effort for most apps — they have even extracted the color of the dot from your icon.
Autofill framework which simplifies how users set up a new device and synchronize their passwords. Apps using form data can optimize their apps for Autofill, and password manager apps can use the new APIs to make their services available to users in their favorite apps.
Autofill will roll out fully over the next few weeks as part of an update to Google Play Services.
They’ve also invested in Android Vitals, a project focused on optimizing battery life, startup time, graphics rendering, and stability, while giving developers better visibility over the health of their apps:
System optimizations: This will help systems to help apps run faster and smoother — for example, in the runtime there’s a new concurrent compacting garbage collection, code locality, and more.
Background limits: Developers have also added new limits on background location and Wi-Fi scans and changes in the way apps run in the background. These boundaries prevent unintentional overuse of battery and memory and apply to all apps — make sure you understand and account for these in your apps.
Complementary Android Vitals dashboards and IDE profilers: In the Play Console you can now see aggregate data about your app to help you pinpoint common issues – excessive crash rate, ANR rate, frozen frames, slow rendering, excessive wakeups, and more. You’ll also find new performance profilers in Android Studio 3.0, and new instrumentation in the platform
Other new features include:
“Smart copy-and-paste“, which highlights an entire address, telephone number or web addresses when people try to copy it limiting how many system resources apps can use while they are running in the background, to reduce memory use and battery use Instant Apps, which lets some services invoke parts of their Android apps, even if people have not installed them redesigned set of emojis, which look more like the ones seen on Apple’s iOS
The picture-in-picture mode will let people watch YouTube videos in a corner of the screen while they use other apps, as long as they have paid for the YouTube Red subscription service.
As we wait for the launch date of the OS, you can follow the updates here
