At Google’s 2017 I/O developer conference, the company revealed more of what to expect from the newest dessert named iteration of Android, the as-yet unnamed Android O, which is coming available in its first public beta today.
The company focused on two themes: ‘Fluid Experiences’ and ‘Vitals’ — referring to keeping the vital system behaviour in a healthy state.
Among the new announcements regarding Android O — there’s Google Play Protect, which shows which Google Play apps in your phone have been recently scanned when in the Google Play Store and TensorFlow Lite, Google’s machine learning but a light version for phones. The company says it will be available later this year.
The company noted that in addition to YouTube, its previously announced picture-in-picture viewing feature will also be available in Maps and Netflix.
Google also demonstrated ‘Notification Dots,’ a feature that shows when you have notifications in an app, similar to the long-time iOS feature of the same nature.
In addition, it showed off its new autofill option, that will let users opt in to a mobile autofill option that will work for “most” applications.
Further, the company demonstrated smart text selection for copy and paste, which uses on-the-go machine learning, a large focus at this year’s conference.
Google says users can expect a release later this summer.
Besides the features announced today, Google’s first developer preview of Android O revealed more granular notification control and an overhauled and minimalist new settings app.
