A 3D printed Android logo
A 3D printed Android logo is seen in front of a displayed cyber code in this illustration taken March 22, 2016. Reuters/Dado Ruvic

Google has released the second Android N Developer Preview for its Android Beta Program members. This update comes after a month of the first Developer Preview, released on March 9, 2016.

Android N Developer Preview 2 - Updates

The over-the-air update is meant for testing the software against apps. Users can easily get preview of updates by enrolling in the Android Beta Program.

“Developer Preview 2 is intended for developers and not as a daily driver; this build is not yet optimized for performance and battery life,” clarified Google.

Android N Developer Preview 2 - Features

The second Android N Developer Preview builds include new features like:

  • Vulcan – It is a new 3D rendering API, which is said to provide providing low-overhead GPU control to developers and a significant overhaul in performance for heavy applications.
  • Launcher shortcuts – Users can now ‘perform actions quicker’ with the help of app shortcuts like sending a message, navigating home in a mapping app and much more.
  • Emoji Unicode 9 support – Google will introduce more ‘human-looking’ emojis and add support for skin tone variations.

Additionally, the latest preview will help Google to fix bugs and vulnerabilities that identified in the previous release.

The first Android N Developer Preview introduced features like Multi-window, Direct Reply notification and Bundled notification to name the few.

The issues that were identified in the first release were inability to connect to hidden Wi-Fi networks, Multi-window pauses and closing of app while using Direct Reply, confirmed Google through a blog post.

Android N Developer Preview 2 – Supported devices

The Android N Developer Preview is currently available for Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 6, Nexus 9, Pixel C devices and General Mobile 4G [Android One] devices.

A report in Tech Times indicates that Google may soon extend the release to Developer Previews to non-Nexus devices. An HTML code revealing hidden text has given rise to speculations that Google’s Developer Preview will be supported by non-Nexus devices.

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