Android O Is Coming. Is it Oreo, or Oatmeal?


O for Oreo, Or Oatmeal...

In a few months time, Google will release Android O. This will ultimately become Android 8.0 but we still don't know which dessert name Google has in mind. Google has already shared a timeline for the roll out of each preview build with the slated for mid-May, likely during Google I/O, the third in mid-June and the fourth in mid-July. The public version of Android 8.0 will be out for supported Pixel, Nexus and Android One devices sometime in Q3, most likely in late August or early September. Until then, we did our following and got ourselves a glimpse of what we should expect on the much awaited release. Let's brush over some features according to the First Developer Preview of March this year.

The O Developer Preview runs from 21 March 2017 until the final Android O public release to AOSP and OEMs, planned for Q3 2017.

The first visible feature is the iOS adoption of Picture in Picture mode. What PiP mode basically does is that it enables an Android user to run multiple apps at the same time. This is an added advantage to multitasking users. The initial developer preview defined the settings for this feature, though it is yet to be seen in action as it does not function as expected.

Google is also striving to put continued emphasis on improving battery life and performance. Background apps are on the spotlight this time round, though much emphasis is on: implicit broadcasts, background services, and location updates.This means apps won’t be able to drain your battery when you’re not using them anymore. According to Google this is a “significant change in Android, so we want every developer to get familiar with them.”

Icons in Android O are animated. Yes. They are not static. this is an added advantage to icon pack developers. They can now create adaptive icons that change dynamically, similar to the way the Calendar icon automatically changes with the date on the Pixel phones.

Finally, users are able to fully customize their texts with loads of custom fonts. Fonts will now be fully supported resource type. Apps will be able to display richer custom fonts. Developers will be able to use fonts in XML layouts as well as define font families, as well as declare the font style and weight along with the font files.
The developer preview of Android O is not part of the OTA beta program, so developers will need manually download the factory image and manually flash the ROM to their devices. Google is also promising to open it up to the main beta program as development continues, and will be doing final adjustments and release at this year's Google I/O in May.