Android O tipped to launch on August 21; Expected features

It goes without saying that everyone is waiting eagerly for Android O. It was tipped to launch this week. Making the claims was Android Police's managing editor David Ruddock.

Unfortunately, Google did not make announcements about the launch. Now, Ruddock has again posted a tweet saying the Android O launch has been delayed. While he has not given any reason behind the delay, he has revealed something important in the next tweet. According to him, we will get to know the official name of Android O on August 21. That said, his tweet clearly mentions that the source is not verified.

What's more, in his last tweet, Ruddock has claimed that not only the name, Android O will be released on August 21 as well. Needless to say, Google Pixel devices will be the first smartphones to receive the update. Rumors have it, Nokia 8 will be the first non-Pixel smartphone to feature the Android O.

He further claims, Google will do something spectacular for the launch of Android O. However, we are not expecting a launch event.
Last year, Google officially unveiled the Android 7.0 Nougat on August 22. So considering the past pattern, August 21 seems to be a likely date for the Android O launch.

As far as the new features are concerned, the Android O is expected to bring notification channels, shortcut pinning, auto-fill, picture-in-picture, etc. Picture-in-picture mode is perhaps the most needed feature for YouTube and active YouTube app users. Using this mode will allow users to browse their smartphone even when the YouTube app window is open.

Besides this, the latest version of Android will provide a simplified and better-organized settings menu. While most of the smartphones have at least 20 settings tab with Android Nougat on their smartphones, O will slash the number of tabs to 12.

Other than that, Android O will host a smarter text selection. If you select an address the selection tool will offer you an option to look it up on Google Maps similarly if you select a phone number you will receive an option to quick dial the number.

These features are expected to help increase the user engagement with the apps so that more users will upgrade to the upcoming Android O platform with time.