Android 11 Beta 2 brings platform stability for Pixel phones; final release expected on September 8

Google has released Android 11 Beta 2, which also marks the platform stability milestone. This is the six previews of Google‘s upcoming mobile operating system. The second beta version is now available for Pixel phones and should be available for other compatible devices in the coming weeks. With platform stability, Google says all the APIs and behaviors have been finalized. This will allow developers to make final changes to their updates and start testing their apps and games for the new version.

Android 11 Beta 2: Everything you need to know

Android 11 is an incremental update over Android 10 and it brings a lot of system-level changes and few important user-centric changes as well. While it debuted in the form of developer preview 1 in February, the beta roll out has been rocky from the start. The first beta release was expected to arrive in May at the annual I/O developer conference. In the face of the pandemic, Google cancelled the event and released the beta version in June. Despite the delay, Google says it is on schedule to release Android 11 during the third quarter of this year.

Android 11 is now expected to officially land on September 8, which will be in-line with Google’s proposed timeline. The date appeared in a YouTube video posted by Google for its Smart Home Summit. For now, Android 11 Beta 2 is available for eight compatible Pixel phones. These include the Pixel 2, Pixel 2 XL, Pixel 3, Pixel 3 XL, Pixel 3a, Pixel 3a XL, Pixel 4, and Pixel 4 XL. You can also try the beta release via the official Android Emulator on your desktop.

According to the timeline shared by Google, there will be four developer previews and three betas this year. We should see the release of Android 11 Beta 3 next month, which will be the release candidate build. With these betas, Google is helping developers iron out compatibility issues for their applications. The idea is for developers to test their current app against the new version and release a compatibility update. This will allow most apps to run smoothly on the day of release of Android 11.

With the newest version of its mobile operating system, Google is targeting 5G experiences and foldable form factor. With beta 1, we saw how Google plans to bring messaging services together. They are clubbed together in the form of conversations in the notification window. On the core platform, they will appear as bubbles, provided all developers enable the flag. The new changes coming with this release include one-time permission, external storage access, scudo hardened allocator and file descriptor sanitizer.