The Android N Developer Preview 2 is Now Available!
It’s happening! And for the new emojis try that hyperlink.
Android N’s 2nd Developer Preview is now out for eligible Nexus devices. This developer preview is a culmination of feedback effort from developers, and as such, has ironed out a few bugs:
Not being able to connect to hidden Wi-Fi networks (AOSP 203116)
Multiwindow pauses (AOSP 203424)
Direct Reply closing an open activity (AOSP 204411)
Along with these fixes, the Second Dev Preview also adds on new features such as:
Introduction and integration of Vulkan API for 3D rendering
Launcher shortcuts on the default launcher: Shortcuts help perform specific actions quicker by providing easier access. Shortcuts contain an Intent for specific actions in the app, and providing these actions on the homescreen will improve UX by removing repetitive taps.
Emoji Unicode 9 Support: The update now includes a People emoji which favors a more human-looking design, as well as adds in support for skin tone variations and Unicode 9 glyphs.
API Changes: The Dev Preview update also contains refinements to previously introduced API’s. An example given is for Multi Window support, though you can find the other refinements by taking a look at the diff reports in the downloadable API reference package.
So, how do you get the 2nd Developer Preview on your eligible Nexus device? Google recommends enrolling for the Android Beta Program, after which you can receive these and later developer previews via Over-the-Air updates. If you are already enrolled in, look out for the OTA notification appearing on your device soon. And if you can’t wait at all, you can always download and flash the update manually.
The Android N Second Developer Preview is currently available for the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Pixel C and General Mobile 4G (Android One). Update to the Nexus Player will come in a few days. This and all other Developer Previews are intended for developers to use and test their apps on. They are not optimized for battery and performance, and as such, are not recommended as daily drivers.
For a long, long time, emoji support on Android has been playing catch-up with iOS — sometimes lagging behind by as much as several years. In many cases, characters sent from another device (such as an iPhone) wouldn’t display at all on Android, leaving a lot of information lost in translation. Even the few characters that did render were often depicted differently: if you’ve been on Android since the days of Jelly Bean, you probably remember those peculiar little monochrome Bugdroids that Google used in lieu of smiley faces.
A lot has changed since then: emoji on Android have gained some color, they more closely match the samples from the Unicode Standard, and they’ve grown to include several hundred different characters. Just a few months ago, Hiroshi Lockheimer, Google’s Senior Vice President in charge of Android, said they would begin doubling down on emoji support, and followed up on that promise in December by including the new glyphs from Unicode 8.0 in Android 6.0.1.
Not being content with only 879 emoji, the Unicode Technical Committee (yes, these are the guys whose job it is to decide which emoji make it into the official list) has proposed 74 new characters for Unicode 9.0, including one for bacon and another for selfies. These emoji are so new that they’re technically still just candidates: officially they won’t be released until June. That about lines up with the expected launch schedule for the final version of Android N, which is why Google has chosen to ship the glyphs with the latest developer preview released this week.
We’ve already seen how many of the current emoji have changed in Android N, particularly in how many of the blobs are now much more human-like. However, since the Google keyboard app (or any other keyboard app, for that matter) hasn’t been updated for Unicode 9.0, it doesn’t display any of the new emoji yet, even though Android N now fully supports them.
That means that even though users can’t directly input any of the new characters using a keyboard, they’ll still be rendered correctlyeverywhere else — which also means they’re easily copyable and pastable too. Here’s a complete list of all 74 new emoji:
- 🤵 Man In Tuxedo
- 🥑 Avocado
- 🛵 Motor Scooter
- 🕺 Man Dancing
- 🥐 Croissant
- 🤦 Face Palm
- 🤤 Drooling Face
- 🤜 Right-Facing Fist
- 🥃 Tumbler Glass
- 🥘 Shallow Pan Of Food
- 🖤 Black Heart
- 🦐 Shrimp
- 🦑 Squid
- 🤷 Shrug
- 🤥 Lying Face
- 🤰 Pregnant Woman
- 🤶 Mother Christmas
- 🤠 Face With Cowboy Hat
- 🤡 Clown Face
- 🥀 Wilted Flower
- 🦉 Owl
- 🤢 Nauseated Face
- 🥓 Bacon
- 🥔 Potato
- 🤛 Left-Facing Fist
- 🛴 Scooter
- 🤚 Raised Back Of Hand
- 🦊 Fox Face
- 🦇 Bat
- 🤝 Handshake
- 🥒 Cucumber
- 🦅 Eagle
- 🦈 Shark
- 🥕 Carrot
- 🦆 Duck
- 🥋 Martial Arts Uniform
- 🥆 Rifle
- 🥈 Second Place Medal
- 🥉 Third Place Medal
- 🦋 Butterfly
- 🥄 Spoon
- 🛶 Canoe
- 🥅 Goal Net
- 🥞 Pancakes
- 🥇 First Place Medal
- 🤾 Handball
- 🤧 Sneezing Face
- 🥚 Egg
- 🦎 Lizard
- 🥁 Drum With Drumsticks
- 🥛 Glass of Milk
- 🦍 Gorilla
- 🥝 Kiwifruit
- 🤼 Wrestlers
- 🦏 Rhinoceros
- 🥖 Baguette Bread
- 🦌 Deer
- 🤻 Modern Pentathlon
- 🤺 Fencer
- 🥜 Peanuts
- 🤽 Water Polo
- 🥊 Boxing Glove
- 🤹 Juggling
- 🛒 Shopping Trolley
- 🤴 Prince
- 🥗 Green Salad
- 🤳 Selfie
- 🛑 Octagonal Sign
- 🥂 Clinking Glasses
- 🤞 Hand With Index And Middle Fingers Crossed
- 🤸 Person Doing Cartwheel
- 🥙 Stuffed Flatbread
- 🤣 Rolling On The Floor Laughing
- 🤙 Call Me Hand
If all you see above is a bullet list of tiny squares, you can have a look below to check out all the characters that will soon be coming to an Android device near you. In addition to the new emoji, Android N also supports the skin tone modifiers that were added as part of Unicode 8.0. This was probably part of the reason Google switched from neutral blobs to more anthropomorphic emoji: blobs with skin color would likely look strange.
If you’re keeping count, that brings the grand total to 953 official characters — excluding flags and other emoji composed of multiple glyphs. For the first time, iOS is actually behind Android in terms of emoji support, even if just for a preview version. A new beta version of iOS will certainly show up sooner or later with Unicode 9.0 support, but at least for now, Android owns the emoji crown. 🤴
SOURCE: XDA
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