Android P Releases Its Final Beta

While Android Oreo is just starting to hit its stride, Android P is making news too.  This week Google released the final beta preview of Android P before it’s official launch.  We’ve seen a few beta previews so far this year, and this one should be even closer to what P will look like when it launches.

According to Android VP Dave Burke this beta includes “final system behaviors” meaning Google’s new gesture-based navigation will be locked in and shipping with Android 9.0.  Of course there’s always room for improvement, and that’s a large reason betas exist, but this should be stable for installation on your main phone.  Google hasn’t mentioned any known bugs, so if you have a phone that can handle it out get the beta and let us know what you think!

What’s new in P?

We’ve talked before about Android P and what features it has to offer.  Spoiler: they’re awesome.  P offers a series of features that revolve around the idea of predictive analytics.

There’s an adaptive battery that takes into account what time of day you typically are running your apps, and if it doesn’t think you’ll be using them any time soon it shuts them off to save energy.  Couple this with the screen brightness which auto adjusts based on what you typically set it to throughout the day, and you’re looking at a much longer lasting battery life.

Apart from performance improvements, we also have completely new features that enable us to experience things differently.  One I’ve talked about before at length is Wi-Fi RTT.  Round Trip Time is a method of really getting to know your exact current location.  It’s accurate within about a meter, and does so by triangulating between multiple Wi-Fi access points nearby.  This improved location methodology offers some cool opportunities that just depend on how creative developers want to get.

Privacy Improvements:

There are also security improvements that come with P, and in an everchanging world of privacy that’s a key improvement.  Have you ever gotten a notification saying an app was running in the background when you didn’t think you’d been using it?  How about having an app crash in the background even though you haven’t opened it in ages?  That’s never a good thing to see.  P will prevent idle apps from performing actions such as accessing your camera (yes this is a thing!!).  P offers a series of security upgrades that limit what apps can do in the background in an effort to help protect user privacy.

How to get P?

First off, I’m so ready to stop calling it P and use it’s actual name. Unfortunately we’ll have to wait a little longer for that.  But if you want to get the beta on your phone today you can check it out on Android’s developer website here.  Give it a try and let us know your thoughts on it!  We’ll be sure to continue writing about developments in the software, so stay tuned for more.