Android Oreo debuts officially; Know when it arrives on your phone

With no surprises, Google has named next version of Android as 'Oreo' that joins the long list of yummy dessert names, such as Nougat, Marshmallow, Lollipop, and KitKat.

The company, at a press event in New York City, announced that it has pushed the final version of Android 8 Oreo out to the Android Open Source Project, the underlying software on top of which the Android loaded on smartphones and other devices is built. Google’s Pixel and Nexus handsets will also soon see the update, with the beta program participants receiving it first.

Oreo: Smarter, faster and more powerful than ever

Now coming to what's new inside Oreo that's being described as “smarter, faster and more powerful than ever.” Oreo brings notification dots to your phone, so you can see which apps have new stuff for you. It enables picture-in-picture multitasking and gives users more control over push notifications.

The main focus of Android Oreo is on battery life, speed and security, with greater control of apps. As Oreo puts greater restrictions on what an app can and cannot do in the background, it improves the battery of your device by putting unused apps to sleep when the phone is not being used and then waking them up on demand.

Android O also ships with more security features, including remote location, locking and wiping with Find My Device, and Google Play Protect, which scans for, detects and automatically deletes malicious apps on a daily basis. Then, of course, there is this whole new set of decidedly un-blobby emoji.

Most importantly, Android 8.0 brings Project Treble to new devices, a modularization of the OS away from the hardware, which should make it easier to develop and roll out new Android updates.

So, now the question of when do you get the update. Well, in the case of Android, there is a big problem of fragmentation as the operating system has a number of hardware and carrier partners that ring in the updates at their own fancy. Apparently, only 13.5 percent of all Android users currently have Nougat installed on their devices. A whopping 77.5 percent of Android owners are on three older versions: Marshmallow, Lollipop and KitKat.

Google says that the update will be available by the end of the year on devices from handset makers including Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Essential, General Mobile, Huawei, HTC, Kyocera, LG, and Motorola. For Google devices like the Pixel phone, Nexus 5X and 6P, the update will start rolling out in phases "soon."