Google delays Android 11 Beta, announces I/O replacement event for June 3

The coronavirus pandemic has turned everyone's daily life upside down, and Google is no exception. Today the company is finally reflecting that reality in the Android 11 release schedule and delaying the first beta of Android 11, which was due out this month. Instead, Google is releasing a previously unscheduled "Preview 4" release of Android 11 today, and it's pushing the entire schedule back a month. The good news is that Google also announced a new online event, "Android 11: The Beta Launch Show," which will take place on June 3.

This month was supposed to have Google's biggest show of the year, Google I/O, on May 12, but that was completely canceled in March due to the pandemic, so the Beta event will serve as a stand-in. As part of the big show, we were supposed to get the first big "beta" release of Android, which usually comes with a lot of information on what Google has been working on all year. There have already been three (and counting today, four) "Preview" releases, but these are more like "alphas."

The beta releases are the next big step in Google's development process, and with that step comes wider phone support and easier installation. Lately, a big collection of third-party OEMs have jumped on board the beta program—basically everyone but Samsung—and curious users can install the beta themselves at Android.com/beta. Critically, the beta releases also let you go back to the stable release if you don't like them, while for the Preview releases, only phones with an unlocked bootloader can go backward to an older version.

As for the delay, this is what the new schedule looks like. Google says it will be "moving out Beta 1 and all subsequent milestones by about a month." Google always kept the final Android 11 release date a bit vague, so it's still landing in Q3, but now it seems that will be a month later, too. As for the major schedule changes, Google says:

• We’re releasing a fourth Developer Preview today for testing and feedback.

• Beta 1 release moves to June 3. We’ll include the final SDK and NDK APIs with this release and open up Google Play publishing for apps targeting Android 11.

  
  
  
  
  

• Beta 2 moves to July. We’ll reach Platform Stability with this release.

• Beta 3 moves to August and will include release candidate builds for final testing

The Android 11 Beta Show

Google's blog post says The Beta Launch Show will be "an online event where we can share with you all the best of what’s new in Android. We hope you’ll join us for #Android11: The Beta Launch Show, your opportunity to find out what’s new in Android from the people who build Android. Hosted by me, Dave Burke, we’ll be kicking off at 11AM ET on June 3, and wrapping up with a post-show live Q&A." It sounds like the event will cover a lot of the hype and consumer-centric news of Google I/O, and Google says the developer-centric talks that it "had originally planned for Google I/O" will go online later that day, too. It sounds like we'll be getting a huge info dump.

We'll take a look at Preview 4 later today, but like past Android 11 Previews, we're not expecting much. Presumably, Google is just holding back everything for the beta release. In the meantime, mark your calendars for June 3, and we'll leave you with Google's hype video for the event.

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