A month or so ago Google surprised the mobile world by launching the first developer preview of Android N way earlier than expected. And now the search giant is pushing out Android N Developer Preview 2 to those who’ve installed the first one.
While technically this is the third developer preview release for Android N, the second one came immediately after the first and was only meant to fix some bugs.
Today’s Android N Developer Preview 2 packs in some new features as well. Apps can define intent shortcuts, which users can then add to their launcher to get stuff done quicker. For example, one such shortcut would let you send a message to a specific contact, or start navigating home in a mapping app.
Emoji Unicode 9 support is baked in too, which means people emoji will look more human. There are also skin tone variations built in, and Unicode 9 glyphs such as bacon, selfie, and face palm.
Certain general API changes have made the cut, as well as bug fixes of course, and a new 3D rendering API called Vulkan should help developers offer “a significant boost in performance for draw-call heavy applications”. The full developer-focused details can be found at the Source link below.
If you’re already running the Android N Developer Preview, this update will be rolling out to you over-the-air in the following days. Otherwise, if you want to start testing now, just go here and enroll one of your Nexus or Pixel devices in the Android Beta Program. You’ll then receive the update shortly (also OTA), no other actions are necessary. Finally, you can download the new release and flash it manually if you’re into that type of thing.
Google notes that the Android N Developer Preview is still not ready to be used as a daily driver on your main device, because it’s not optimized for performance and battery life.