Google officially announced the launch of Android 15 Beta 1 today, which is the first Beta version of Android 15.
According to reports, Android 15 is the latest platform focused on privacy and security, developer productivity, user customization, and tablet/large screen support. Google will share more at the Google I/O conference on May 14.
Starting today, users can upgrade to Android 15 Beta 1 by registering their Pixel devices. Eligible devices include:
Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro
Pixel 6a
Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro
Pixel 7a
Pixel Fold
Pixel Tablet
Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro
If your device is already running Android 14 QPR3 or Android 15 Developer Preview, it will automatically receive the OTA update for Android 15 Beta 1.
Note: Pixel 5a is not eligible for Android 15 Beta. If you currently have a Pixel 5a device registered for the Android 14 QPR3 Beta, you will receive the final stable public version of QPR3 in June.
Google says this release is suitable for development, testing, and general use. Android 15 is still under active development, so Android and the apps that run on it may not always work as expected.
Android 15 Beta 1 new features and changes:
Window border area changes
Performance profiling of application management using ProfilingManager
Inter-character text alignment options
OS-level support for archiving apps via PackageInstaller.requestArchive()
Key management changes for end-to-end encryption
wallet role
Issues fixed in Android 15 Beta 1:
Issues reported by developers
Fixed a system network issue that sometimes caused an “Adaptive Connection Service” message to be displayed.
Fixed a system issue that caused the “BAL blocked…” system message box message to appear frequently when using the device.
Fixed an issue that sometimes caused the Quick Settings function block to not render correctly.
Other issues resolved
Fixed an issue where sideloading Developer Preview 2 builds would sometimes cause the device to display a “Device is corrupted” message after sideloading completes.
Fixed an issue where the preview screen appeared to be cropped or clipped when adding a face model for Face Unlock.
Fixed an issue where users were not prompted to enter a PIN to unlock the SIM card when inserting a locked SIM card into an unlocked device.
Fixed an issue where apps that depended on runtime-enabled SDKs were uninstalled on device restart.
Fixed an issue that caused the search bar in system settings to become unresponsive when first tapped.
Fixed an issue where secondary users’ profile photos could not be changed.
Fixed an incompatibility issue between Skia and the Android 15 Preview SDK that prevented 3D mode from being enabled in the layout inspector.
Bluetooth solved issues
Bluetooth stability and pairing: We fixed multiple Bluetooth crashes and pairing failures, significantly improving connection reliability.
LE Audio and Earphone Enhancements: LE Audio connectivity and user experience have been greatly improved, including fixes for inconsistent audio routing, post-call volume issues, and pairing difficulties.
Security improvements: We fixed an important security vulnerability related to legacy pairing of Pixel 4a and Pixel 3 XL.
Bluetooth device information accuracy: We fixed multiple bugs to ensure that the pairing information and bonding type extracted are accurate.
Known issues
Android platform
When an app window transitions to Picture-in-Picture (PiP) mode, the PiP window disappears if the device is rotated before the PiP transition is complete.
When setting up the device, I see a “Google Play services keeps stopping” message.
An error occurred while adding the account during device setup.
Unicode 15.1 API: The android.icu.lang.UCharacter API for Unicode 15.1 is not working properly in Developer Preview 2, but should be fully functional in Android 15 Beta 1.
Android Studio and Tools
Android 15 preview API level (VanillaIceCream) does not show up in the Preview Configuration window.
In some cases, when checking for updates in Android Studio, the latest version of the Android SDK Build-Tools that includes the Android 15 Preview SDK is not available.
When configuring a new project in Android Studio, the Android 15 Preview SDK version is not listed in the “Target SDK version” and “Minimum SDK version” drop-down menus.
Sometimes, Android Virtual Devices (AVDs) using Android 15 system images fail to launch if the AVD is launched in embedded mode.
An Android emulator issue sometimes prevents apps from being redeployed to an Android Virtual Device (AVD) after the AVD is closed.
An Android emulator issue causes hearing device accessibility shortcuts to launch multiple Settings app windows.
An issue with the Android emulator causes the notification window to flicker when typing a direct reply.
An issue with the Android emulator sometimes causes the authentication flow in the app to fail with the “Google Play services keeps stopping” message.
An Android emulator issue causes Simpleperf to crash when running a CPU profile.
An Android emulator issue causes the languages listed in the system language settings to display incorrect characters.
An issue with the Android emulator sometimes causes the QR code scanner to display a “Something went wrong” message and fail to launch.
On some Android virtual devices, the viewfinder of the Android QR code scanner is sometimes cropped or resized to a smaller size.
An issue in Android Studio causes Device Manager to temporarily stop displaying the “Missing system image…” warning message after adding or removing an SDK platform using the SDK Manager.
In some cases, an issue with the Android emulator prevents the Google Discover feed from loading.
application
“Android System Intelligence keeps stopping” message appears when creating a file in the Google Docs app.
The Google TV app sometimes fails to start video playback and instead displays the message “Play Movies & TV is temporarily unavailable.”
