Android 17 Beta 3 has been announced by Google for its eligible Pixel smartphones. The new beta brings a host of new features and with this beta, Android 17 has officially reached platform stability. That means that the API surface is locked where developers can perform final compatibility testing and push their Android 17-targeted apps to the Play Store.
Google reiterated that Android 17 removes the temporary developer opt-out for orientation and resizability restrictions on large screen devices that was provided in Android 16. This change introduces a new standard platform behavior. “Android is moving toward a model where apps are expected to adapt to various orientations, display sizes, and aspect ratios. Restrictions like fixed orientation or limited resizability hinder App adaptability,” said the company.
As for Android 17 Beta 3, it brings features like Per-app Expanded dark theme controls (via 9to5Google). Android’s “Expanded Dark Theme” lets users force a dark mode on apps that don’t support it natively. While many apps already switch to dark mode automatically based on the system setting, this feature allows users to apply a dark theme even to apps that don’t offer it by default.
Then, there’s the new Mobile Data quick settings tile we saw in the Android Canary build a few days back. It simply separates the ability to turn on/off the mobile data from the Network tile which earlier used to control both Wi-Fi and mobile data.
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Then you can now also hide the app labels on the Home Screen for a cleaner look. Further, Android now has support for controlling Assistant volume separately. This means you can control how loud or quiet the Assistant gets when it responds to you via voice. Android 17 Beta 3 also adds the ability for developers to customize the Photo Picker to be 1:1 square or 9:16 portrait.
App Bubbles, also seen in the Android Canary build earlier, is now fully supported for any app in Android 17 Beta 3. You can long-press on an app for a new icon in the top-right corner of the box which appears. Once you tap on it, the app stays as a bubble at the corner of your screen so you can access it instantly while working in other apps. There’s also a newly designed screen recorder where you can also select only a specific app to be recorded.
Apart from these new features, Beta 3 also brings a long list of bug fixes which further makes it much more stable for daily use if you can’t wait for a stable release later this summer.
Android 17 Beta 3 is available for all Pixel smartphones launched since Pixel 6 series, which in other words means that all Tensor-powered Pixel phones are supported.
Author: Abhishek Malhotra
Source: The Mobile Indian
Reviewed By: Editorial Team
