Android 17’s first beta was meant to be out today, but at the last moment it was delayed. The reason for the delay is unclear, but Google has told 9to5Google that it’s still “coming soon”.
Following that, the finished release might land sometime around June, so whether you’re an intrepid beta user or you prefer your software bug-free, you probably don’t have too long to wait to get your hands on Android 17’s goodies.
But what goodies can you expect? Well, while we probably don’t yet know everything that Android 17 will contain, we do have an idea of some of what Google is cooking up. So below, we’ve detailed five of the features that are worth getting excited about in the next major Android update.
1. Material 3 Expressive
You might think Material 3 Expressive launched as part of Android 16, and you’d be right – but only for Pixel users. Now, as part of Android 17, it’s expected that Material 3 Expressive will come to far more phones.
This is a major visual overhaul that includes new animations, new icon shapes, new blur effects, and layout changes.
Of course, since manufacturers tend to put their own spin on Android anyway, you won’t necessarily get the exact version of this seen on Pixel phones, but this update does mean that a lot of Android interfaces will start looking very different to how they do currently.
2. Motion Cues
Motion Cues is a feature that could help reduce motion sickness when using your Android device in a moving vehicle. It would achieve this by placing dots on the screen, that move in relation to the movement of your phone, thereby making it clearer to your brain whether your phone is moving or not, which in turn could reduce nausea.
We’re not actually sure whether this feature will land as part of Android 17, but Google is known to be working on it, and it’s looking like these Motion Cues could be ready in time for this major Android release.
3. Adaptive apps
One feature that is specifically expected in Android 17 is that apps would have to be more adaptable to different screen sizes.
So in other words, developers won’t be able to lock their apps to specific sizes or orientations, which will mean apps will reliably fill the screen of a tablet or foldable phone, rather than being displayed in a window as can sometimes be the case now.
So this should be a huge upgrade for anyone who has a Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 7 for example or an Android tablet.
4. Smoother camera transitions
If you have an Android phone with multiple cameras then you might have noticed a slight pause when moving between lenses – this will be more noticeable on some phones than others, but in many cases it makes switching lenses far from a smooth experience, but that should change with Android 17.
Google is adding professional-grade camera APIs which should make for far smoother transitions between lenses. So if for example you want to move from a wide-angle to an ultra-wide, and then jump to the telephoto, you’d be able to do so without freezes or stutters.
5. Versatile Video Coding
Finally, with Android 17, Google is adding support for the Versatile Video Coding (VVC) standard. This standard – also known as H.266 – is a video compression standard that allows you to compress footage so it takes up less space, but it does so without sacrificing much if any quality, making it a big upgrade on the previous HEVC (H.265) standard.
So if you shoot a lot of videos and have found it tough to choose between saving space and retaining the original quality of your footage, then Android 17 should have the solution.
That said, this also relies on your device supporting VVC, so not every Android 17 phone and tablet will get this feature.
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