- Google announced earlier this month that the Android 7.1 Nougat developer preview will be released for select devices by the end of this month. The search giant has now delivered on its promise and made the developer preview available for Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, and Pixel C.
- In order to get the developer preview, you can sign up for the company’s Android Beta Program, which was announced earlier this year, and receive the update over-the-air. You can also choose to download the factory image for the preview from the Android website and flash it to your compatible device.
- App Shortcuts API– up to 5 intents can be launched within a menu accessed by long-pressing on an app’s icon from the launcher
- Image Keyboard Support– easily share images from your IME to any text input in your favourite app
- Enhanced Live Wallpaper Metadata– wallpaper pickers can now display more detailed information while previewing the live wallpaper
- Round Icon Resources – developers can now easily style their app icon to be rounded to fit in with the new Pixel Launcher
- Storage Manager Intent– if running low on storage, apps can now directly guide user to the storage manager so they can quickly free up space
- Improved VR Thread scheduling– developers can dedicate a single thread solely to handling the VR process, hopefully reducing latency
- The Android API level is also finally being bumped up to version 25 with this release, so if your device is running this latest preview you can start taking advantage of apps that are targeting API level 25, which includes Google Camera v4.2.
- Google has also opened up the ability for third-parties to start publishing apps in the Play Store under this new API level, so if you’re a developer looking to build an app aimed at Pixel owners you can get started immediately with the updated development tools.
- Google tends to not publish a fully comprehensive change-log for the Developer Preview, so there’s always some goodies for users to discover once they’ve flashed the update.
- Here is a list of some new features that users are reporting on our forums. Keep in mind, though, that these features can be removed in a future update without notice:
- Reboot option in power menu
- Notification panel has space for an additional tile, and provides easier access to directly launch the settings app
- Support tab in settings
- New “Moves” menu in settings, which now holds all of the gesture-based options including Ambient Display, Double-Tap Power to launcher Camera, and Double Twist to switch between Cameras while in Google Camera
- sRGB picture color mode in Developer Settings
- As expected, the Pixel “exclusive” features such as Google Assistant and fingerprint gestures are not available in this Developer Preview.
There are three ways to get the update to Android 7.1
developer preview at this time. The first is through the Android Beta Program,
which will allow Google to send the update to you over-the-air. If you don’t
want to go that route, you can choose between flashing factory images or OTA
.zip files found below.
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