The last developer preview for Android P was only 12 days ago, but it looks like Google’s has a major surprise for Android users. The commercial version of Android P is out today and has a new name: Android 9 Pie.

The major update rolls out to Google’s Pixel phones starting today. Among the chief changes for the OS are a UI overhaul, an updated notification panel, and new settings. Android Pie will also support notched displays and a gesture navigation system, similar to the iPhone X. Extra improvements also include an AI-powered adaptive battery, a new auto-brightness algorithm, and changes to CPU background processing.

Google is starting up another beta for its incomplete Digital Wellbeing features today. Digital Wellbeing is an initiative to help curb smartphone addiction. It includes features such as app usage tracking, app lockout timers, and a feature that puts the display into grayscale at night.

Apart from that, Android Pie’s other unfinished feature, ‘Slices’, will come out later this fall. The feature lets you gather chunks of UI for display with different apps. This was demonstrated at Google’s I/O 2018 conference earlier in the year. Come to think of it, we probably should have figured that ‘Slices’ was a reference to ‘Pie’.

As for Android Pie on non-Pixel phones, Google says that updates should appear before the end of the year. Keep in mind that several non-Google devices shipped with the Android P beta builds thanks to Project Treble. Treble’s use of Android 8.0 Oreo makes updates faster and easier for original equipment manufacturers (OEMs). Now that a final build is out, it will be interesting to see how quickly OEMs can bring out hardware with the new update.

(Source: Ars Technica)