This afternoon, Google posted the final developer preview for Android 7.0 Nougat. Which means the final version should be coming out in just about a month or so. Just like with any update to software, there is a changelog to go along with it. There’s not much new, at least that Google is making public, in Developer Preview 5. According to the Android Developers website, the preview has updated the system images for supported devices in the emulator. Noting that this developer preview includes near-final system images and final API’s for Android Nougat. Of course, there are plenty of small changes under-the-hood here. But as far as new features go, those are all already baked into Nougat.
Now when it comes to known issues, however, there are plenty of issues with this developer preview. Not to worry, they will likely be all fixed up in the final release. Google warns that there are some stability issues in this update, which is a given considering this is a developer preview. Multi-window also has some issues with MapView being blank. Some apps are having issues recording and playing back video at 240fps with the camera. Another known issue that will affect the majority of people include Do Not Disturb being set at reboot. Android Auto also still has issues with Google Maps working. However, the next version of Google Maps will fix this issue, and it’ll be available in the “coming weeks”.
As is expected, there are plenty of issues here with the Developer Preview, although it is still considered a beta. Unless you are a developer, you probably shouldn’t be running this preview on your daily driver. With all of the stability issues and other apps not working correctly, it’s not a great idea to have this on your daily driver. Now that we have the fifth developer preview, the next step is the final release, which means new Nexus hardware as well. There have already been tons and tons of leaks on the new Nexus hardware, that is said to be made by HTC, so we shouldn’t be all that far out from the release. Google recently revealed that Android N will be named “Nougat” and that the version number is Android 7.0. So all that’s left now is new Nexus hardware and the final build.