Google just released Android 9.0 with a (boring) new nameā¦ Pie! 
Got it flashed on my Pixel 2 XL! Itās just like the DPās 
But runs nice and smoothly 
(Yes, the Monzo app still works on it 
not that Iād expect otherwise 
)
Hereās some source links and a post from @simonb about the last preview release!
Thoughts on the name?!
Canāt beat a slice of pie, Android 
Pineapple would of been better!!
Awesome I put my pixel 2 on the beta last week and itās slick! Loving it so far.
OTA is already available. At least on my Pixel XL.
Not a fan of just Pie. Something like Pecan Pie sounds more Androidy to me.
Will probably have to sideload to update it. Iām on DP4, and when I tried to upgrade from DP3, it just didnāt work because of Magisk and a custom kernel Iām running to make Safetynet work.
Iāll upgrade it soon 
.
Liam
I find that the best way to upgrade with magisk etc. Is to do a full flash (removing the -w flag) and then redo magisk and kernel 
That method took me from DP1-5 & to stable earlier 
Yeah, thatās what I did when I went from Beta 3 to Beta 4.
This is the major issue with that though:
Nice small update on the 1st Pixel
Just updated to the final release on my P2XL.
Apparently the Pixel 3 will only ship with the new gesture nav, and not the old three button system! 
Iām lost as to what the price should be for all the rumours on the 3 / 3XL
Sounds like itās RAM and camera offerings wonāt be the best and they might be making up for it through software, hopefully making it cheaper? Wireless charging might help the usb-c port last longer though!
I wonder how many Android users will be using āPieā given only ~12% were on āOreo?ā
The absolute state of Android OS fragmentation.
Updated my Pixel 2 XL this morning and seems a touch snappier!
I have also got the Digital Wellbeing Beta installed so will see what that is like.
Just installing both the final release for Pixel & digital well-being
Yeah the fragmentation is really bad, Those stats reckon just over 30% of users are below Android 5, so usig software before 2014ā¦
Supporting the old devices while developing apps gets interesting, such a variety of hardware available and you can still buy tablets with 6.0 (probably even lower) installed.
Google Play will require that new apps target at least Android 8.0 (API level 26) from August 1, 2018, and that app updates target Android 8.0 from November 1, 2018.
I use Android 5 as the minimum target when building apps but even some of those devices are just too damn slow with all the other stuff people put on them 
Compare that to Apple where almost all the devices are on the latest version or will be at some point. The only awkward bit is was when they threw in a notch.
Going to try out the digital well-being
Versions generally donāt matter though - the compatibility libraries (now called jetpack) mean you build the same app to target everything, and I havenāt seen any back compatibility issues for quite a while using those.
Target API 26 is sensible (We target 28 on current builds). That isnāt the minimum (thatās a separate setting), it just means your app is able to cope with the various changes over time, like requesting permissions and not using APIs removed for privacy reasons.
iOS is actually worse in this regard. If you target an ios version it will stop working completely on anything lower. Thatās why we still target ios 6 on our commercial builds - we have a couple of large customers who are still running that on all their staff ipads (yeah old, but we can only advise, canāt force people to upgrade).
The official ones Distribution dashboard | Platform | Android Developers say ~10% below 5.0, with the peak of the curve somewhere between 6.0 and 7.0.
Agreed - Android āFragmentationā is mostly a myth these days, at least if you understand the way Android works.
A huge amount of what we consider to be the Android OS is decoupled from the underlying operating system and regularly updated over-the-air, things like Google Play Services. Plus, most OEMs these days I believe are also getting monthly security updates as a separate OTA.
That aside, I have confidence that weāll see results of Project Treble within a couple of years. Thatās the project that ensured that all phones that ship with Oreo or later, have the OS partition completely separated from the OEM customisation layer, ensuring that the OS can be updated without breaking any customisations that the OEM have made (Samsung springs to mind, they tend to make very major changes to Android).
For what itās worth, this isnāt a particularly exciting release for anyone thatās been on the Beta for months, but it seems that Google will ship the Pixel 3 with 9.1 and save some of the ābig featuresā for that.
Interestingly though, today marks the first day in the history of Android that a third-party OEM shipped a Day One OS update, which bodes well (see comment above about Project Treble)
I have this on my PH-1 and itās very nice. Essentialās commitment is all the more remarkable considering it could be their last handset!
I want it now but I have an S8 