Android 15 Beta is now here

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Google releases a new major update for Android each year, and we’re getting closer to the arrival of Android 15. The third beta of Android 15 is now live.

Android 15 Beta 3 is now available for eager testers and software developers, either on real devices or the Android Studio emulator. It’s the start of the “Platform Stability” stage, which means there won’t be any more significant changes from now until the final release of Android 15. We’re in the final stretch.

The latest beta has an improved experience for passkeys and other types of saved credentials, reducing the steps for logging in with a saved passkey from two taps to one tap. WebSQL inside Webview elements is also now deprecated, following its removal in Google Chrome and the underlying Chromium engine, and Google says it will stop functioning across all Android versions in the next 12 months. That will break older apps that rely on WebSQL, but there probably aren’t many of those at this point.

There’s not much else to talk about. Since features like Find My Device can be rolled out to all Android devices without an OS update, and Google now releases features for its Pixel phones year-round in Feature Drops, the ‘big’ yearly Android updates are mostly just API and security changes. The most recent Pixel Feature Drop added support for USB-C external displays to the Pixel 8 and Pixel 8a, reverse phone number lookup, and a ‘Summarize’ option in the Recorder app.

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Android 15 introduces new limitations on background apps, a ‘Private Space’ for storing sensitive applications with an extra layer of authentication, improved support for satellite connectivity (though there aren’t phones using that yet), the ability to record specific app windows instead of the entire screen, and other changes. It also has updated camera hardware controls on supported devices and a ‘Low Light Boost’ feature available to camera apps.

You can install the Android 15 Beta on any modern Google Pixel device, and there are also OS images available for select third-party devices from Lenovo, Nothing, OnePlus, and other manufacturers. There’s also an Android 15 Beta image available in the Android Studio Emulator. However, if you’re not a developer, there’s not much point in trying it right now—the final stable release isn’t far away.

Source: Google