Google Introduces Android O For Its Third Preview

Google recently released the third preview for Android O. There are several goodies inside this developer preview, including the version number for Android O.

According to GSM Arena, it shows that Android 8.0 is what many people were expecting for Android O. Because people saw it as Android N were 5.0, Android M was 6.0, and Android L was 5.0.

Android O still has a long way process to go before it will be finished and become available to all. Google isn't slated to release the final version until around August of this year. This is a similar time frame to what Google used last year with Android N, launching the stable version ahead of their next hardware release.

Consumers might expect that the Pixel 2 would launch with Android 8.1 similar to the Pixel coming with Android 7.1 last year. Android O is a pretty big update, although still not as huge as Android L was, a few years ago.

With Android O, Google is launching a slew of tiny tweaks to the OS, as well as adding picture-in-picture across the operating system (OS). This was a feature that was launched in Nougat for Android TV, but now it's coming to smartphones and tablets as well.

According to Silicon Angle, Google also introduced Notification dots, where users can see and identify easily which apps these notifications are coming from along with notification levels. With this, more important notifications are more visible than the less important ones.

Google has one more developer preview that was scheduled to come out before its final release in Q3. It will likely be set in early July, setting up for an August launch. With this third developer preview, API's for Android O are now final, so developers can start getting their apps ready for Android O. They can start publishing it on Google Play for users to download and use. Android O is available for the Pixel, Nexus 6P, Nexus 5 X, Pixel C, and Pixel XL in the Android Beta programs.