Google officially launched the latest version of Android Oreo 8.0 a few days back after months of testing through the developer preview versions. While only the Google Nexus and the Pixel line-up of devices have received the 8.0 update, it seems that Google has already begun the development process of the next major version of Android, Android 9.0 tentatively codenamed Android P.
Google generally releases major software updates for Android every year, so according to that trend, Android P would probably be released in 2018. This means that Google has got plenty of time to work on the upcoming version of Android, so we could expect a lot better version of Android with many new features and several UI changes.
However, it is too early to talk about Android P especially considering the fact that not even a fraction of Android devices have been updated to Android O yet. A member of XDA developers noted that Google has updated the AOSP Project with a new tag named “Master-P”.
Also, a few new changes have been made to the version_defaults.mk file which reveals that Google is currently testing the upcoming version of Android P in the Google Pixel and the Pixel XL. This was decoded from the code names mentioned in the commit as Sailfish and Marlin of the Pixel devices.
Another commit was also found in the code repository which was named as “master is P only, removing old values” and it shows that the platform version name was updated from 8.0.0 to P. However, this might just be a wild speculation and Google might even be working on the iterative version of Android Oreo 8.0 for the upcoming Pixel 2 and the Pixel XL 2 devices.
But according to a comment made by someone from Google on the repository, the Master branch was updated to commits only related to Android P. So, Google might directly jump from Android 8.0 to Android 9.0 instead of releasing an incremental update like it did for Android Nougat 7.1.1.
Although, as already mentioned it is still too early to presume things until we receive any official confirmation from Google regarding the changes made to the AOSP project or about the Android P update. You can have a look at the AOSP on the official website.
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