Google could release the developer preview of the newer edition of Android – Android P – by as early as this month. As per renowned leaker Evan Blass, the Android P developer preview is expected to roll out sometime towards the middle of March, while the stable and broader release will happen later in August or September this year. This will be the first developer preview of the Android P edition, so it is likely to be full of bugs.
The Android P Developer Preview 1 is targeted for developers to test the operating system for any bugs, malfunctions, crashes, and other small changes. Much like the previous developer preview versions, the Android P Developer Preview 1 will be open to download for everyone, however, since the developer previews are unstable, the non-developer users should be aware of the know-how. In order to download and install the Android P Developer Preview 1, the user needs to be registered as a developer with Google.
There isn’t much clarity about the features of the Android P, in addition to its official name as Google would choose to unveil it at a later date. However, there are speculations that the code for Android P Developer Preview could be released on March 14, or 3/14 (or 3.14), which is the most approximate value of ‘pi’. Now, the word ‘pi’ is homophonous with ‘pie’, which is a dessert and goes in line with the Google’s tradition of picking dessert names for its Android versions. It is worth mentioning that this is just a speculation and Google may or may not use ‘Android Pie’ as a name for its next Android edition.
Among the scarce information that is available about the Android P features, it is speculated that it will have support for call blocking and recording. According to the code chunks obtained by folks at XDA Developers, Android P is also said to come with support for the top ‘notch’, since Android smartphones have started adopting the iPhone X style. The developer previews are built for the developers to look for bugs so that Google notices them and squashes them to make the final build bugfree, that is why most of the Android P features won’t be outed until the official announcement expected at the Google I/O 2018, which is slated to begin on May 8 this year.
