Google Delivers First Android 8.1 Oreo Developer Preview

by Brandon Hill — Thursday, October 26, 2017, 11:15 AM EDT

Google launched Android 8.0 Oreo over the summer, but chances are pretty slim that your device has received the update unless you have a supported Pixel or Nexus device in-hand. Smartphone OEMs are notoriously slow to release major Android updates, but that isn't stopping Google from moving on to the next branch of Oreo: Android 8.1.

Android 8.1 is now available as a Developer Preview, and brings with a number of optimizations to make this tasty operating system even sweeter. For starters, Google has made optimizations for Android Go, which is a fork of Android that is geared towards devices with 1GB or less of memory. Google has also implemented switches which allows developers to deliver APKs to devices based on the amount of RAM they have onboard.

Also new with Android 8.1 is a Neural Networks API, which brings hardware-accelerated "interface operations" for device that support the feature. Google says that the Neural Networks API forms the building blocks for the machine learning frameworks that it has in development like TensorFlow Lite.

In addition, this early Android 8.1 Developer Preview brings some updates to Autofill and gives apps the ability to access shared memory with the SharedMemory API.

One of the big updates planned for Android 8.1 that wasn't discussed with this initial release, is the Pixel Visual Core SoC. This custom Google chip is built into every Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL smartphone, and is designed to process HDR shots much faster than what's possible with a general purpose SoC. According to Google's analysis, the Pixel Visual Core is 5 times faster while using 1/10^th the energy of existing hardware solutions.

Google will likely enable the feature in future Android 8.1 Oreo Developer Previews before rolling it out to all Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 Xl devices with the final OS release.

Tags: Google, (nasdaq:goog), android oreo, pixel visual core, android 8.1

Brandon Hill

Brandon received his first PC, an IBM Aptiva 310, in 1994 and hasn’t looked back since. He cut his teeth on computer building/repair working at a mom and pop computer shop as a plucky teen in the mid 90s and went on to join AnandTech as the Senior News Editor in 1999. Brandon would later help to form DailyTech where he served as Editor-in-Chief from 2008 until 2014. Brandon is a tech geek at heart, and family members always know where to turn when they need free tech support. When he isn’t writing about the tech hardware or studying up on the latest in mobile gadgets, you’ll find him browsing forums that cater to his long-running passion: automobiles.

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