Google Delivers the Final Android 15 Beta Release

Android 15 Beta 4 is the second platform stability milestone for this release and the final pre-release version before it hits stable.

“This is our second Platform Stability release,” Google vice president Matthew McCullough writes in the announcement post. “The developer APIs and all app-facing behaviors are final, and apps targeting Android 15 can be made available in Google Play.”

Beta 4 doesn’t include any new features, which makes sense given the schedule. Instead, it delivers Google’s latest fixes and optimizations so developers can complete testing new and updated apps against this Android version. Google isn’t saying so, but with a major Pixel event scheduled for August 13, it’s safe to assume that it intends to finalize Android 15 by that date so that it can be included in the new phones and other devices it will announce then.

Key platform features arriving with Android 15 include predictive back animations, a low-light boost auto-exposure mode for camera apps, the ability to detect if an app is being recorded, partial screen sharing, remote views with live content, among others. Google recommends that developers install the latest Android Studio Koala version for testing, and it has made updated Android emulator images available in addition to the over-the-air updates heading out to supported Pixel and third-party devices that are already enrolled in the beta. The Android SDK Update Assistant can help ease this process.

You can learn more about Android 15 on the Android Developers website.