If you have the device which is mentioned above and interested to try the latest Android 8.1 then go ahead and enroll for the Android Beta Program and once registered your device will get an OTA update of the developer preview of Android 8.1.You can also directly download the ROM from Google and flash it manually.
Google will send two OTA updates for the Developer Preview of Android 8.1 with the first one is already available ow and another one will be available by end of November and Google will launch the final version of Android 8.1 in late December.
With the latest update of Android 8.1 has got some of the new features for the upcoming Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL. With this update, there is activation of Intel Pixel Visual Core on both the Google Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL and a new Neural Networks API is added on to improve Machine learning.
Apart from that, with Android 8.1 has improved the app notification sounds which will now alert once per second, the software is now compatible with even lesser RAM devices which gives fluid experience on low-end devices and finally improved Autofill which now shows only the last four digits of the Credit/Debit card which is saved on the device and will work automatically without one need to activate from accessibility option.It also comes with new Wallpaper API which will now allow one to manage the colors. Google has also added the new Shared Memory API which helps the apps to allocate the memory for faster access which will make easier to older devices or low configuration.Now fingerprint manager comes with two new error codes.
Apart from these, there are some UI changes too with the Android 8.1 Developer Preview. With the latest version of Android will bring few UI changes like now when you long press the Power button you will be getting the rectangular popup menu with more rounded edges on the right edge of the device near the power button which earlier use to pop up in the middle of the screen.The icons of the pop-up menu for restart and power off button remains unchanged.
Now with Quick setting color will change the default wallpaper applied like if you apply very light color wallpaper the Quick setting will turn to White color and if you apply dark wallpaper the Quick menu will change the color to Black.With this update, this new feature will no longer be exclusive to Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL and will also be compatible with all other Nexus and Pixel devices launched earlier.
With Android 8.1 the system notification is now Oreo-themed. Earlier the system notification use to appear as small circle which is the Android O logo over the icon and now icons appear with small Oreo cookies.
Not that’s all now Android 8.1 will alert users with battery consuming apps via notification which is a helpful feature.Earlier the same feature was included on Android 8.0 but it was for apps running in the background which is consuming more battery but now all the apps whether it is running or not you will be notified with the alert for the battery consuming app.
Finally, the last change is the addition of search bar on top of the setting menu.It never disappears sits persistently on the top of the settings menu when you are scrolling.
