Final preview of Android 8.1 now available



Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering


Starting today we're rolling out an update to the Android 8.1 developer preview,
the last before the official launch to consumers in December. Android 8.1 adds
targeted enhancements to the Oreo platform, including optimizations for
Android Go (for devices with 1GB or less of memory) and a
Neural Networks API to accelerate on-device machine
intelligence. We've also included a few smaller enhancements to Oreo in response
to user and developer feedback.



If you have a device enrolled in the href="http://www.android.com/beta">Android Beta Program, you'll receive the
update over the next few days. If you haven't enrolled yet, just visit the href="http://www.android.com/beta">Android Beta site to enroll and get the
update.



At the official release in December we'll bring Android 8.1 to all supported
Pixel and Nexus devices worldwide -- including href="https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/new-pixel-2/">Pixel 2 and Pixel 2
XL, Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel C, Nexus 5X, and Nexus 6P. Watch for
announcements soon.


What's in this update?



This preview update includes near-final Android 8.1 system images for Pixel and
Nexus devices, with official APIs (API level 27), the latest optimizations and
bug fixes, and the November 2017 security patch updates. You can use the images
for compatibility testing or to develop using new Android 8.1 features like the
href="https://developer.android.com/ndk/guides/neuralnetworks/index.html">Neural
Networks API and href="https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/10/android-81-developer-preview.html">others.



The Neural Networks API provides accelerated computation and inference for
on-device machine learning frameworks like href="https://www.tensorflow.org/mobile/tflite/">TensorFlow Lite -- Google's
cross-platform ML library for mobile -- as well as Caffe2 and others. TensorFlow
Lite is href="https://developers.googleblog.com/2017/11/announcing-tensorflow-lite.html">now
available to developers, so visit the href="https://github.com/tensorflow/tensorflow/tree/master/tensorflow/contrib/lite">TensorFlow
Lite open source repo for downloads and docs. TensorFlow Lite works with the
Neural Networks API to run models like href="https://research.googleblog.com/2017/06/mobilenets-open-source-models-for.html">MobileNets,
Inception v3, and href="https://research.googleblog.com/2017/11/on-device-conversational-modeling-with.html">Smart
Reply efficiently on your mobile device.



Also, for Pixel 2 users, the Android 8.1 update on these devices enables href="https://www.blog.google/products/pixel/pixel-visual-core-image-processing-and-machine-learning-pixel-2/">Pixel
Visual Core -- Google's first custom-designed co-processor for image
processing and ML -- through a new developer option. Once enabled, apps using
Android Camera API can capture HDR+ shots through Pixel Visual Core. See the href="https://developer.android.com/preview/release-notes.html#test-pixel">release
notes for details.


Get your apps ready



With the consumer launch coming href="https://developer.android.com/preview/overview.html">in December, it's
important to test your current app now. This ensures that users transition
seamlessly to Android 8.1 when it arrives on their devices.



Just enroll your eligible device in href="http://www.android.com/beta">Android Beta to get the latest update,
then install your app from Google Play and test. If you don't have a Pixel or
Nexus device, you can set up an Android 8.1 emulator for testing instead. If you
notice any issues, fix them and update your app in Google Play right away --
without changing the app's platform targeting.



When you're ready, take advantage of new features and APIs in Android 8.1. See
the developer
preview site
, the href="https://developer.android.com/sdk/api_diff/27/changes.html">API 27 diff
report, and the updated
API reference
for details.


Speed your development with Android Studio



To build with Android 8.1, we recommend updating to href="https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/10/android-studio-30.html">Android
Studio 3.0, which is now href="https://developer.android.com/studio/index.html">available from the stable
channel. On top of the new app href="https://developer.android.com/studio/profile/android-profiler.html">performance
profiling tools, support for the href="http://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/android-announces-support-for-kotlin.html">Kotlin
programming language, and Gradle build optimizations, Android Studio 3.0
makes it easier to develop with Android Oreo features like href="https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2017/05/android-instant-apps-is-open-to-all.html">Instant
Apps, href="https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/look-and-feel/downloadable-fonts.html">XML
Fonts, href="https://developer.android.com/guide/topics/ui/look-and-feel/downloadable-fonts.html">downloadable
fonts, and href="https://developer.android.com/guide/practices/ui_guidelines/icon_design_adaptive.html">adaptive
icons.



We also recommend updating to the href="https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/support-library/revisions.html?utm_campaign=android_launch_npreview_061516&utm_source=anddev&utm_medium=blog">Android
Support Library 27.0.0, which is available from href="https://developer.android.com/studio/build/dependencies.html#google-maven">Google's
Maven repository. See the href="https://developer.android.com/topic/libraries/support-library/revisions.html#27-0-0">version
notes for details on what's new.


Publish your updates to Google Play



Google Play is open for apps compiled against or targeting API 27. When you're
ready, you can publish your APK updates in your alpha, beta, or production
channels.



To make sure your app runs well on Android 8.1 as well as older versions, we
recommend using Google Play's href="https://developer.android.com/distribute/engage/beta.html?utm_campaign=android_launch_npreview_061516&utm_source=anddev&utm_medium=blog">beta
testing feature to run an alpha test on small group of users. Then run a
much open beta test on a much larger group of users. When you're ready to launch
your update, you can use a href="https://developer.android.com/distribute/best-practices/launch/progressive-updates.html">staged
rollout in your production channel. We're looking forward to seeing your app
updates!


Give us your feedback



As always, your feedback is crucial, so please href="https://developer.android.com/preview/feedback.html">keep it coming!.
We've set up different hotlists where you can report href="https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=190602&template=1024208">Android
platform issues, href="https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=190602&template=808305">app
compatibility issues, and href="https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=190602&template=809305">third-party
SDKs and tools issues. We also have a dedicated hotlist for href="https://issuetracker.google.com/issues/new?component=190602&template=1024216">Neural
Networks API issues.



You can also give us feedback through the href="https://plus.google.com/communities/105153134372062985968/stream/755bb91d-c101-4e32-9277-1e560c4e26d2">Android
Developer community or href="https://plus.google.com/communities/106765800802768335079">Android Beta
community as we work towards the consumer release in December.



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