Android 11 Developer Preview 1 landed yesterday. That being said, it seems like we’ll see 2 more Android 11 Developer Previews, and also 3 betas before a stable build arrives.
2 more Android 11 Developer Previews coming, along with 3 beta builds
This information has been revealed by the Android Developers website. A detailed timeline has been shared for the Android 11 rollout. This confirms that we’ll see 2 more Android 11 Developer Previews, and 3 betas, before a stable build comes knocking.
Speaking of which, Android 11 stable build will launch in the third quarter of this year. The second developer preview is coming in March. That will be an incremental update with several new features, APIs, and behavior changes.
The third developer preview will drop in April, which will also be an incremental update. The very first Android 11 beta is coming in form of an OTA update in May. That update will arrive to users who enroll in the Android Beta program of course.
With this beta build, Google will continue compatibility testing, and collect feedback from beta testers, of course. That should help the company stabilize the update before its final release.
The second beta build will arrive in June, and will bring final APIs and behaviors. It will also open Play publishing and developers will be urged to start final compatibility testing for apps, SDKs, and libraries.
The final beta build is set to arrive in Q3 2020, prior to the stable release
The final beta build, the third one, is set to drop in Q3 2020. This will be a release candidate build, and should be extremely stable. Google may issue a tweak or two to it, before pushing it to the stable channel, but this should essentially be it.
Following the third beta build release, developers will be required to release compatible updates for apps, SDKs, and libraries. The final build should arrive shortly after the third beta build.
On top of everything, it is worth noting that Google will introduce a new Platform Stability milestone. That is expected to help developers plan and test their final releases. It will arrive with the beta 2 build, it seems.
The Platform Stability milestone signifies that Android 11 will reach its final internal and external APIs, final app-facing behaviors, and final non-SDK graylists by the second beta release.
Android 11 will bring a number of new features to the table, though it won’t be a major revamp of the platform. It will bring Chat Bubbles to devices, which will essentially be equivalent to Facebook’s Chat Heads, but for all chat apps.
One-time permissions will also be a part of the package, and the same goes for new biometric levels. Official waterfall / pinhole support will be added with Android 11, and much more.