Google announced on Tuesday that Android 10, its next big version of Android, is rolling out to Pixel phones beginning today.
Android 10, known as Android Q beta until late last month, introduces lots of new features, including:
- Accessibility changes like live captions for videos and podcasts
- A new dark mode that makes devices easier to view at night
- Support for faster security updates
- Improved parental controls
- New algorithms that can understand how often you use apps and shut them down to improve battery life
- Better notification controls
- Gesture navigation
- A redesigned Android Auto interface.
Android 10 will roll out to additional Android phones over the coming year. Android phones typically take longer to get updates than iPhones, since it's up to manufacturers and carriers to approve when and which phones will receive the new version. You shouldn't expect to see it anytime soon unless you have an Android device or a phone from one of the partners who have been testing the early Android 10 betas on select devices, like OnePlus.
According to Google's Android distribution dashboard for the seven-day period ended May 7, 2019, for example, only 10.4% of all Android devices are running Android Pie, which was released last year. Most Android devices (28.3%) still run a version of Android Oreo, which was released in 2017.
It's one reason why buying a Pixel phone is a good idea: you get the latest updates first.
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