The search giant has launched the first developer preview of Android P with updated SDK with system images Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, and Pixel 2 XL phones, and the official Android Emulator along with support for new features and APIs. While there are lots of new features, one of the most notable is the built-in support for display cutouts (read: notches) for all the new phones that decided to emulate the notch. Android P introduces support for the IEEE 802.11mc Wi-Fi protocol, also known as Wi-Fi Round Trip Time (RTT), which allows you to take advantage of indoor positioning in your apps. Devices will be able to view the distance to Wi-Fi access points, which means it will be able to tell accurate location that is within 1-2 meters. Android P also introduces several enhancements to notifications, such as support for images and conversation participants, suggest AI-powered smart replies, set semantic action for an intent, and much more. Further, the Quick Settings menu has also been tweaked. It has the ability to access streams from multiple physical cameras at once along with built-in support for High Dynamic Range (HDR) VP9 Profile 2, HEIF and Media APIs. A multi-camera API so that an Android app can individually request the data from more than one camera sensor at once. It also includes consistent UI for fingerprint authentication, and privacy improvements to restrict what apps can do in the background. Besides the above, there are many improvements made to security, privacy, Kotlin optimizations, power efficiency, ART performance, and more. You can read more information about all of the new features and updated APIs that are included in the first Android P developer preview here. The first Android P developer preview is available for download from developer.android.com. However, this preview won’t be released to the Android Beta Program, which allows users to get early Android builds via OTA (over-the-air) updates on select devices. Google has made the first preview solely available by manual download and flash, to warn that the preview is solely for developers, and not intended for consumer use. Meanwhile, the next preview will arrive in May, which will be a beta release. The final update will be made available to the public in the third quarter of 2018. More information about Android P are expected to be shared by Google at the Google I/O Developer Conference 2018, which begins on May 8th. Keep watching this space for more updates!!! Source: ZDNet
