Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering
At
for India this Monday, we announced the final release of Android 8.1 Oreo.
Android 8.1 Oreo is another exciting step toward bringing to life our vision of
an AI-first mobile platform, for everyone, everywhere.
Android 8.1 introduces support for our new
devices. Android Oreo (Go edition) brings the best of Android to the rapidly
growing market for low-memory devices around the world, including your apps and
games.
Android 8.1 also introduces the
Networks API, a hardware accelerated machine learning runtime to
support ML capabilities in your apps. On supported devices, the Neural Networks
API enables fast and efficient inference for a range of key use cases, starting
with vision-based object classification.
You can get started with Android 8.1 Oreo (API level 27) today. We're pushing
sources to Android Open Source Project
now, and rolling out the update to supported Pixel and Nexus devices over the
next week. We're also working with our device maker partners to bring Android
8.1 to more devices, including Android Oreo (Go edition) devices, in the months
ahead.
Android Oreo (Go edition)
As
Google I/O 2017, the "Android Go" project is our initiative to optimize the
Android experience for billions of people coming online around the world.
Starting with Android 8.1, we're making Android a great platform for entry-level
devices in the Android Oreo (Go edition) configuration:
- Memory optimizations -- Improved memory usage across the
platform to ensure that apps can run efficiently on devices with 1GB or less
RAM. - Flexible targeting options -- New
feature constants to let you target the distribution of your apps to normal
or low-RAM devices through Google Play. - Optimized Google apps: Rebuilt and optimized versions of
Google apps, using less memory, storage space, and mobile data. - Google Play: While all apps will be available on Android
Oreo (Go edition) devices, Google Play will give visibility to apps specifically
optimized by developers to provide a great experience for billions of people
with the
for billions guidelines.
We've updated the building for billions guidelines with
additional guidance on
to optimize your app for Android Oreo (Go edition) devices. For most
developers, optimizing your existing APK or using Google Play's
APK feature to target a version of your APK to low-RAM devices is the best
way to prepare for Android Oreo (Go edition) devices. Remember that
your app lighter and more efficient benefits your whole audience, regardless
of device.
Neural Networks API
The
Networks API provides accelerated computation and inference for on-device
machine learning frameworks like
cross-platform ML library for mobile -- as well as Caffe2 and others. TensorFlow
Lite is
available to developers, so visit the
Lite open source repo for downloads and docs. TensorFlow Lite works with the
Neural Networks API to run models like
Inception v3, and
Reply efficiently on your mobile device.
Autofill enhancements and more
Android 8.1 includes select
features and developer APIs (API level 27), along with the latest
optimizations, bug fixes, and security patches. Extend your app with
enhancements, a
API, and more. You can also add established Android Oreo features as well, see
the
Oreo site for details.
Test your apps on Android 8.1
If haven't already, take a few moments today to test your apps and make sure
they offer the experience you want for users upgrading to Android 8.1 Oreo.
Just install your current app from Google Play onto a device or
running Android Oreo and test the user flows. The app should run and look great,
and handle the Android Oreo
changes properly. In particular, pay attention to
location limits,
channels, and changes in
and
Speed your development with Android Studio
To build with Android 8.1, we recommend updating to
Studio 3.0, which is now
channel. On top of the new app
profiling tools, support for the
programming language, and Gradle build optimizations, Android Studio 3.0
makes it easier to develop for Android Oreo features like
Apps,
Fonts,
fonts, and
icons.
With the final platform we're updating the SDK and build tools in Android
Studio, as well as the API Level 27 emulator system images. We recommend
updating to the
Support Library 27.0.2, which is available from
Maven repository. See the
notes for details on what's new.
As always, we're providing downloadable factory and OTA images on the
Images page to help you do final testing on your Pixel and Nexus devices.
Publish your updates to Google Play
When you're ready, you can publish your APK updates targeting API level 27 in
your alpha, beta, or production channels. Make sure that your updated app runs
well on Android Oreo as well as older versions. We recommend using
testing to get early feedback from a small group of users and a
report to help you identify any issues, then do a
rollout. Head over to the Android Developers site to find more info on
best practices. We're looking forward to seeing your app updates!
What's next for Android Oreo?
We'll soon be closing the Developer Preview issue tracker, but please keep the
feedback coming! If you still see an issue that you filed in the preview
tracker, just file
a new issue against Android 8.1 in the AOSP issue tracker. You can also
continue to give us feedback or ask questions in the
community.
