You may be waiting for Android Pie to reach your mobile device, but the next major Android update is already around the corner. And Google may drop the first Android Q beta as soon as Monday according to a discovery. Furthermore, the Android Q beta will be available on even more devices that Android P, a Googler confirmed.
First found by xda-developer’s Mishaal Rahman, the bug tracker for Android Q is already online.
Seems like Google opened up the bug tracker for submitting bugs related to the Android Q beta. The link to check for existing bugs filters by date created after March 11th.
Are you ready for Android Q?
https://t.co/MQj25b6XXZ pic.twitter.com/EZkNNFmCbW
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) March 11, 2019
As Android Police explains, the Issue Tracker search has a date filter for March 11th, which suggests that only reports made after Monday can be seen. This is apparently a confirmation that the beta will drop on March 11th.
Separately xda-developers relayed a comment that Android Developer Illiyan Malchev made during the Android Developers Backstage podcast about the number of Android smartphones that will support the upcoming beta. We’re looking at even more handsets than last year, although no specific models were named.
Q: I noticed that when we announced the Android Pie preview at last year’s I/O, there were several devices that were announced at that time, which I thought was new to have that many different devices coming out. I assumed that was in part due to Treble, making it easier for those devices to be….
Illiyan: Yeah, in fact it was fully due to Treble. We had, I believe, eight OEMs including Pixels, so seven OEMs other than Pixel. And I think it was for the first time we had all of these companies line up to do developer previews and betas for Android Pie well ahead of the AOSP publication date. For reference, we tend to release the new version of Android sometime in August. So at Google I/O [2018], when we did the first beta, we had all these companies lined up, and that was really that amazing. The number is bigger for the upcoming Android release, which I am very happy about. I cannot share the exact numbers yet. But the trend is positive and strong, and I am very happy about this.
That should be exciting news to anyone looking to test the new version of Android, whether they’re developers or not. When Google released the first Android P beta last year, it supported a variety of devices not just the Pixel 2. The list included several brand new Android handsets, even devices that were not available in stores: Sony Xperia XZ2, Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, Nokia 7 Plus, Oppo R15 Pro, Vivo X21, OnePlus 6, and Essential PH‑1. It’s likely that the first Android Q beta will be available on some of this year’s hottest flagships, in addition to the Pixel 3 series.
