After almost devastating the smartphone hardware business, the COVID-19 pandemic will now make its impact felt on the smartphone software industry well. One of the first major victims to the same will be Google’s much anticipated Android 11 OS, the Beta 1 for which has now been delayed to June 3. The company also provided an updated beta release timeline, along with dropping a surprise release of the Fourth Developer Preview that dropped on the same day.
“To help us meet the needs of the ecosystem while being mindful of the impacts on our developers and partners, we’ve decided to add a bit of extra time in the Android 11 release schedule”, read the Google blog announcing the delay. Consequently, the release of the first beta has been pushed forward by a month with Beta 2 being pushed to July and Beta 3 to August. However, the company maintained that final public release stands as is, in late Q3 this year.
The first version of the Developer Preview shall be launched officially, the blog states, in an online developer event called ‘#Android11: the Beta Launch Show’ on 3rd of next month. “When we started planning Android 11, we didn’t expect the kinds of changes that would find their way to all of us, accross nearly every region in the world”, the post reasons as it addresses the current challenging scenario causing major shift of releases.
In terms of the new developer preview being dropped, the Developer Preview 4 comes with bug fixes, feature tweaks and some new features to try on. Developers can read more about the same here. It’s available by manual download and flash for Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 devices. For those running a Developer Preview build, you’ll get an over-the-air (OTA) update to today’s release.
