Work on Android 7.1 Already in Progress
BENGALURU: Google unveiled and showcased the latest version of its mobile operating system called Android Nougat this week. The company seemed to be busy uploading Android 7.0 r1 source code to AOSP. Soon after the launch people started posting an elaborate breakdown of all the changes and some of those insights gave possible hints about some of the upcoming features and hardware changes coming to the Nexus stable in the near future.
A post from the Android Developers blog reads: “In fact, we’ve already started work on the first Nougat maintenance release, that will bring continued refinements, and we’re planning to bring that to you this fall as a developer preview. Stay tuned!” – Dave Burke, Engineering VP.
Same thing happened with Nougat 7.0, as a number of features were leaked before its release, including Nexus launcher, Google Assistant, mock animations, and the navigation bar icons. All these features were not there, making people assume that these features have been put aside from active development.
It seems as if Android is willing to offer its users the choice to opt-in and receive OTA updates with unreleased features, similar to what iOS does with its Public Beta builds.
A pilot is required for the Android Beta Program for this new era of updates. Google has seen the potential of a seamless OTA delivery system for developer previews. The important feedback from users helped Google to release the Android Nougat much earlier than previous releases.
Soon after the launch of Android Nougat 7.0, Google announced that the company will be switching to quarterly maintenance updates. As reported by Android Police, Google is planning to bump the maintenance version to 7.1. According to Google, the developer preview of the maintenance build will come out in the open sometime around this fall.
Read Also: Android Nougat: Promises, Features and Availability
