Android 11 Beta 2 is now available for the eligible Android devices
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Last month, Google released the first Android 11 Beta build to the eligible Android users. Today, Google has announced Beta 2 of Android 11. Along with the release, Google also confirmed that Android 11 has now reached Platform Stability.
Android 11 Beta 2 adds new features and improvements for the developers. You can head below to take a look at the changelog for the update:
- Minimizing the impact of behavior changes – we’re making a conscious effort to minimize platform changes that could affect apps by making them opt-in, wherever possible, until you set targetSdkVersion to Android 11 in your app. If you are distributing through Google Play, you’ll have more than a year to opt-in to these changes.
- Easier testing and debugging – To help you test for compatibility, we’ve made many of the breaking changes toggleable – meaning that you can force-enable or disable the changes individually from Developer options or adb. With this change, there’s no longer a need to change targetSdkVersion or recompile your app for basic testing. Check out the details here.
App compatibility toggles in Developer options.
- Restrictions on non-SDK interfaces – as part of our ongoing effort to gradually move developers away from non-SDK APIs, we’ve updated the lists of restricted non-SDK interfaces, and as always your feedback and requests for public API equivalents are welcome.
- Dynamic resource loader – As part of their migration away from non-SDK interfaces, developers asked us for a public API to load resources and assets dynamically at runtime. We’ve now added a Resource Loader framework in Android 11, and thank you to the developers who gave us this input!
- Platform stability milestone – As mentioned, this is a new milestone we’ve added to our release process to give developers a clear date for final changes. It includes not only final SDK/NDK APIs, but also final internal APIs and system behaviors that may affect apps.
You can check out the dedicated Android 11 blog post for more information about the update. If you have a Pixel 2, 3, 3a, or 4 you can enrol here to get Android 11 Beta 2 over-the-air. Alternatively, you can use Android Flash Tool or use the Android Emulator in Android Studio if you don’t own a Pixel device.
