Google Releases Early Developer Preview Of "Android N"

[phoronix]

Phoronix: Google Releases Early Developer Preview Of "Android N"

In a surprise move and while Android Marshmallow adoption isn't yet too great, the first developer preview release of Android N is now available...

http://www.phoronix.com/scan.php?page=news_item&px=Android-N-Developer-Preview

[Pecisk]

Just curious - does it have Vulkan installed by default?

[rabcor]

Just curious - does it have Vulkan installed by default?

I believe that to be safe to assume (but only for the devices that support it). I mean I doubt samsung would be advertising vulkan on their latest phone for google to get left behind.

[blackout23]

I believe that to be safe to assume (but only for the devices that support it). I mean I doubt samsung would be advertising vulkan on their latest phone for google to get left behind.

It's up to the individual manufacturers anyway. Without shipping a Vulkan driver there won't be any Vulkan on any version of Android. AFAIK Google wants to ship the Vulkan ICD Loader on all newer version of Android even if they don't have a driver. Samsung simply put the ICD Loader and their Vulkan Userland driver into their Android 6 Build.

[tessio]

Vulkan is supported since marshmallow.

But.. is it using openjdk already?

[Tomin]

I wonder if Nexus 7 (2013) will get this. It got 6.0, but the older Nexus 7 (2012) didn't apparently.

[Anvil]

doesnt surprise me bout Mashmallow. ALL IT IS, is another Lollipop release.

[bakgwailo]

Vulkan is supported since marshmallow.

But.. is it using openjdk already?

Why would openjdk make any sense ? ART is so much further thought out and optimized for mobile OpenJDK would be a joke.

[c117152]

In a surprise move...

Not really. Android is tracking linux LTS releases and their EOL for the sake of backporting patches and easing the overhead of device OEMs updates even if it's not official.
If Android devices are designed around 18month life-span while current linux kernel LTS releases offer around 2 years life span, then the short time that passed between 4.1 and 4.4 allowed for a small Android version.

This is not too different from Debian delaying their next release to sync with the next expected linux LTS release.

Edit: Note that device manufactures tend to piss all over Google's careful planning and often release outdated kernels without any regards to security since they're too lazy to update their drivers. Linaro is working on the problem with some OEMs but the smaller companies just don't care enough to bother.

[tessio]

Why would openjdk make any sense ? ART is so much further thought out and optimized for mobile OpenJDK would be a joke.

Google will make OpenJDK better with time joining the other big companies developing OpenJDK.. and will finally get Java 8.
It's happening already..