More phones to get Android Q beta access than last year’s P beta

Last year, Google surprised us by providing Android P Beta access to other smartphones by seven manufacturers that joined Google alongside the Pixel line up. Now, we’ve got a new report about Google allowing more Android OEMs to access Android Q Beta, compared to the Android P Beta.

Notably, the upcoming Android Q will be announced in the coming Google I/O Developer conference. That said, the meeting will be held in Shoreline Amphitheater in Mountain View, California. Notably, it will commence on May 7 and end on May 9, 2019.

To recall, Google announced at I/O 2018 that selected smartphones from Essential, Nokia, OnePlus, Oppo, Sony, Vivo, and Xiaomi could participate in the Android P beta.

The list of devices getting access to Android P developer preview alongside Pixel series comprised- the OnePlus 6, Essential PH-1, Nokia 7 Plus, OPPO R15 Pro, Mi Mix 2S, Sony Xperia XZ2, and the Vivo X21. This was made possible due to Google’s Project Treble- an effort to make Android easier to update.

Upcoming Android Q Beta program

Now, a new report via XDA Developers suggests that Google will be partnering with more Android device manufacturers this year. There’ll be more smartphones for the upcoming Android Q beta program than last year’s Android P beta program.

Iliyan Malchev, one of the engineers working on Project Treble, recently went on the Android Developers Backstage podcast. In the same, he revealed that more OEMs would participate in the Q beta than in last year’s P beta. Unfortunately, he didn’t mention the name nor the number of companies joining the list. Here’s an excerpt from the podcast (starts at 13:20)

Q: I noticed that when we announced the Android Pie preview at last year’s I/O, there were several devices that were announced at that time, which I thought was new to have that many different devices coming out. I assumed that was in part due to Treble, making it easier for those devices to be….

Illiyan: Yeah, in fact, it was fully due to Treble. We had, I believe, eight OEMs including Pixels, so seven OEMs other than Pixel. And, I think it was for the first time we had all of these companies line up to do developer previews & betas for Android Pie well ahead of the AOSP publication date. For reference, we tend to release the new version of Android sometime in August. So at Google I/O [2018], when we did the first beta, we had all these companies lined up, and that was really that amazing. The number is bigger for the upcoming Android release, which I am very happy about. I cannot share the exact numbers yet. But the trend is positive and strong, and I am very happy about this.

Now, this sounds quite astounding and is at the end good for us consumers. The companies like LG and Motorola have partnered previously with Google for Android One devices. And hence, are expected to bring in Android Q beta access for their latest smartphones. Contrarily, companies like Huawei and Samsung are less likely to join the program.

Anyways, we’ve got quite a few months to go for the I/O 2019 event in May. Let’s wait for the coming leaks and reports to reveal more about the same. Stay tuned.