Google has launched the final preview version of Android P. That means the official Android P update for consumers is coming soon.
Technically, the public release is probably coming sometime next month. Last year, Android Oreo launched on 21 August. The year before that, Android Nougat arrived on 17 August. If you believe in patterns, then Google might launch Android P during the third week of August.
As for this final preview version that's just released, also known as the beta 4 (developer preview 5) build, Android VP Dave Burke explained that it brings “final system behaviors", indicating Google’s new gesture-based navigation should be ready as of this release. It's safe to assume that what's inside beta 4 is what we'll all see when Android P, aka Android 9.0, ships this year. But we still don't know what P means.
We've seen Google might call Android P "Android Pistachio" or some derivative of that, but nothing has been confirmed. For more details about the next major update to the Android mobile operating system, see Pocket-lint's guide here. The update includes several visual and functional changes, such as a multitasking preview of each app’s entire window, and a quick shortcuts pulldown and settings menu refresh.
You can also easily edit and annotate screenshots. Just about the only thing we don't know is what it's called and when it'll debut.
If you'd like to try the Android P public beta right now, we have all the details on how to easily get it running on your phone: