Oliver Haslam on March 8, 2018, 2:04 am

Google Announces Android P With Support For iPhone X-Like Notch On Devices, Here’s Everything New

You can now download Android P Developer Preview 1 ROM for Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL after Google announced the new version today, complete with all new features. Here are the details.

Just as had been expected, Google has today taken the wraps off of its first developer preview release of Android P, the next big version of Android to arrive for smartphones and tablets.

Designed to allow developers chance to get their apps ready for the new release while also giving Google a large batch of beta testers with which to squash bugs, this new release is not meant for mere mortals although it can be downloaded from Google’s servers. You will, however, need a Pixel device in order to flash it.

Just like past big Android releases, Android P will have new features for users to take advantage of, but the headline changes with this release are made with developers in mind, Chief of those is new support for notches natively, something that Android phones are employing en masse following the arrival of the iPhone X last year. Built-in support for messing around with the Status Bar, including support for a notch, will allow developers to make sure their apps behave when used on apps with big holes in their screens.

Other new features include:

Revamped notifications which focus on increased functionality, building on changes previously added as part of Android O. New support for conversations, photos and stickers is being added, as are smart replies, just like Google’s new Reply app.
Multi-camera API – with more and more phones starting to ship with multiple rear-facing cameras, Android P will support access to multiple simultaneous streams from those physical cameras just like how it is on iOS. With support for a camera stream that automatically switches between two or more physical lenses, we should see improved zoom and bokeh effects.
WiFi-based positioning will make it possible for apps to locate users indoors by measuring the distance between access points and triangulating a user’s position based on that data.
HDR VP9 video and HEIF image support, which Apple added last year in iOS 11, will be added as part of Android O, allowing for improved dynamic range on devices which support it as well as increased compression capabilities when it comes to images.
As with all Android releases, Google promises increased power efficiency as part of the Android P upgrade thanks to Doze refinements, among others.
Autofill will receive a boost, adding password managers support in it.
Neural Networks API 1.1 will accelerate on-device machine learning thanks to Android P.
Increased background app privacy will arrive via Android P, with apps that are not in the foreground seeing their access to microphones, cameras and sensors restricted like on iOS.
Support for fingerprint recognition will be more consistent post-Android P thanks to the FingerprintDialog API.

It is obviously very early days for Android P, so expect things to change as further previews are released and improvements are made ahead of a public release later this year.

Android P Developer Preview 1 can be downloaded from links given below. It is available for Google’s own Pixel devices only for now.

Android P Developer Preview 1 download links:

Android P Developer Preview isn’t available as an OTA update yet, meaning you will need to flash it on your Pixel device in order to test it. Like Google, we strongly recommend doing it on a test device only.