If you are an Android Developer or an enthusiast, here is some surprise for you. Google has just announced the public availability of Android N developer preview images much before the Google I/O conference. The Android N Preview images are available for download on Google servers. This is happening for the first time, when Google is releasing the developer preview of the next version of Android much before the Google I/O conference and their intention appears to get more feedback & also more time to incorporate developer feedback.
Android N Preview brings some new features which till now were available in some of the custom ROMs for Android smartphones. Some of these features are:
- Multi-window mode : This feature will be utilizing the large screen space available these days on most smartphones and tablets by letting you use multiple windows of different apps running at the same time. It means you can keep watching YouTube or a video and using a messaging app to message to your friends at the same time without the need to switch apps.
- Direct reply notifications : This feature lets you reply to messages right from an alert from the notification center just like iOS.
- Bundled Notifications : This feature bundles all the notifications from the same app into one which cleans up the notification area.
- Improved Marshmallow’s Doze feature to save battery.
Android N Developer preview images are available only for the Nexus devices listed below:
- Nexus 6,
- Nexus 5X,
- Nexus 6P,
- Nexus Player,
- Nexus 9, and
- Pixel C devices
The Android N Developer Preview Images for these supported devices can be downloaded from Android Developer Servers.
Obviously older nexus devices are not part of that list, which means that there is no plans for Android N for devices such as Nexus 5. Nexus 4 if you remember didn’t get official support for even Android 6.0 Marshmallow and hence won’t be a part of Android N also.
We would like to caution the impatient users, stay away from Android N developer preview if the supported device is your primary device. Test it only if you are a developer as this preview is far from perfect or not even a beta version.
Also, at the moment we got no clue on the Android version number i.e. whether Android N will become Android 6.1 or Android 7.0. We also have ni clue on what the final name of this version will be, just like it’s Marshmallow for Android 6.0. We will keep you updated as and when we hear more.
