Android 17 Beta 4 is Here

Today, Google announced the release of Android 17 Beta 4, the final beta of this release cycle and an important milestone.

Whether you’re fine-tuning your app’s user experience, ensuring smooth edge-to-edge rendering, or leveraging the newest APIs, Beta 4 provides the near-final environment you need to be testing with,” Google developer relations engineer Dan Galpin writes. “If you develop an Android SDK, library, tool, or game engine, it’s critical to prepare any necessary updates now to prevent your downstream app and game developers from being blocked by compatibility issues and allow them to target the latest SDK features. Please let your downstream developers know if updates are needed to fully support Android 17.”

Android 17 is on a fast track, with the first beta dropping just two months ago; Beta 2 arrived just two weeks later, on February 26, and then Beta 3 shipped on March 26. And while Google hasn’t yet announced the final release, Google I/O is in about a month, and it’s reasonable to expect a final or near-final pre-release milestone then, with the stable version appearing by mid-year.

As a result, Android 17 is a bit light on major new features, which also makes sense given the maturity of the platform. But the most significant change, perhaps, is that it will require developers to handle the orientation, resizability, and aspect ratio possibilities of big-screen devices like foldables, tablets, Chromebooks, and, soon, Aluminum OS-based laptops.

Developers can enroll any supported Pixel device in the Android beta to test Beta 4 and future releases, which are delivered over-the-air (OTA). You can also test it using the Android device emulators in Android Studio. You can learn more on the Android Developer website.