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Android O Is Officially Launching August 21 (techcrunch.com)

Posted by BeauHD on from the coming-soon dept.

Android O is set to arrive on August 21, with a livestreamed unveiling event timed for 2:40 PM ET in NYC -- which is roughly when the maximum solar eclipse is set to occur for New York. TechCrunch reports: Android O will get a full reveal at that time, which seems like kind of a weird time to do it since a lot of people will be watching the NASA eclipse livestream that Google is also promoting, or staring at the sky (with the caveat, hopefully, that they have procured proper glasses for safe viewing). Google says that Android O will have some "super (sweet) new powers," most of which we know all about thanks to pre-release builds and the Android O teaser Google provided at its annual I/O developer event this past May. WE know, for instance, that the notification panel has been changed significantly, and there's new optimization software to improve battery life on all devices. While Android O's name has yet to be confirmed, the official consumer name is speculated to be "Oreo." Prolific leaker Evan Blass posted a picture of an Oreo to Twitter on Friday following the announcement of the reveal date and event.

4 of 86 comments (clear)

  1. New Android by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Insightful

    Officially launching on less than 1% of all handsets.

    Nougat 7.0 is on less than 7% currently.

    Google still can't figure out how to make this work right after nearly a decade. Fully 93% of handsets aren't running the latest secure version and I don't see this changing with the next upcoming release.

    1. Re:New Android by sheramil · · Score: 4, Interesting

      I was hoping the "super (sweet) new powers" might include the ability to delete the bloatware, in particular the bloatware that is still forced on us but which is no longer supported or even has a server. Yes, Samsung, i'm looking right at you.

    2. Re:New Android by sexconker · · Score: 4, Insightful

      Google doesn't make the hardware, just the software. It's up to the phone manufacturers and carriers to get the updates out.

      Microsoft doesn't make the hardware, just the software. It's up to the PC manufacturers and the ISPs to get the updates out.

      Do you see how fucking retarded that is?

      Google needs to provide the updates. Carriers need to fucking deal with the fact that customers don't want their bloatware. As far as firmware and drivers for specific hardware go, that shouldn't depend on or impact Android updates.

    3. Re:New Android by Lussarn · · Score: 4, Informative

      Fully 93% of handsets aren't running the latest secure version and I don't see this changing with the next upcoming release.

      Having the latest OS is not a requirement for having a secure OS. Several older OSes including Android releases are still receiving updates.