Now that users are getting Android N Developer Preview 4 on their devices, via the OTA that’s finally rolling out, users are starting to notice that some apps are having trouble with the new developer preview. One of those seems to be Hangouts, which is a bit surprising. There weren’t many issues with Hangouts on older developer previews for Android N, but with developer preview 4 the app continues to crash constantly. Right after updating to developer preview 4, our device unlocked to having Hangouts crash (this happened with multiple people on our team, so it’s not an isolated incident). Additionally, Hangouts appears to crash just about any time you try to do something within the app. A bit disappointing for those that may have been looking forward to using developer preview 4 on their main device.
Of course, there are tons of speculation out there about why Hangouts is having issues with developer preview 4. The most likely reason is the fact that the Hangouts team just hasn’t updated the app to work with Android N’s new developer preview. But with Google announcing Allo at Google I/O last month, many are thinking that their attention is on Allo now, and not Hangouts. Which could be true, but no one knows for sure. Hangouts has had a troubled past, and has had quite a few issues over the years, so this may not be surprising to many. But keep this in mind if you were thinking of flashing Android N Developer Preview 4 onto your Nexus device.
Android N doesn’t officially have a name just yet, nor a version number. Google is expected to announce that in a few weeks though. Android N is bringing a ton of new features to Android with this release, of course, the biggest feature is multi-window. A feature that users have been wanting for quite a while. Another is the direct reply API, allowing users to reply to messages – in appropriate apps, of course – from the notification shade, and without needing to open up the app. Android N’s final build is expected to be available sometime in August or September with Google saying it’ll be available in Q3.