Android

Android versions comparison

Android versions comparison
Name-Version user features developer features
Pie/Android 9
(2018 Aug 9/API-28)		 User interface updates:

  • Rounded corners across the UI
  • Quick settings menu change.
  • Notification bar, the clock has moved to the left.
  • The “dock” now has a semi-transparent background.
  • New transitions when switching between apps, or within
    apps
  • Volume slider updated
  • Richer messaging notifications: with full conversation, large
    images, smart replies
  • The power options now has a “screenshot” button
  • Biometric authentication can now be disabled only once
Oreo/Android 8.1
(2017 Dec 5/API-27)		  

  • Show battery level in “Quick Settings” for devices connected
    via Bluetooth
  • Navigation buttons dim when not in use
  • UI updates to ‘Power Off’ and ‘Restart’
  • Toast messages are now white in color with same existing
    transparency
  • Automatic light and dark themes
  • Emoji updates (ie: Hamburger move the cheese slice
    position)
  

  • Neural networks API for artificial intelligence
  • Shared memory API
  • WallpaperColors API
  • Programmatic Safe Browsing actions
  • Autofill framework updates
  • Go Edition: lightweight Android distribution for
    devices with less than 1 GB of RAM
Oreo/Android 8.0
(2017 Aug 21/API-26)		  

  • PIP: Picture-in-Picture with resizable windows
  • Android Instant apps
  • Improved notifications system
  • Improved system settings
  • Lock screen redesign
Nougat/Android 7.1.2
(2017 Apr 4/API-25)		  

  • Battery usage alerts
  • Nexus and Pixel specific improvements
Nougat/Android 7.1.1
(2016 Dec 5/API-25)		  

  • Long press on the app icon enable new launch actions
  • The default keyboard allows now to send GIFs directly
  • New set of emojis
Nougat/Android 7.1
(2016 Oct 4/API-25)		  

  • Daydream Virtual Reality mode
  • Night Light
  • Storage manager improvements
  • Performance improvements for Touch and Display managements
  • Option to enable fingerprint swipe down gesture
  • Seamless system updates
  

  • Shortcut manager APIs
  • Support Circular app icons
  • Keyboard image insertion
  • VR thread scheduling improvements
  • Enhanced wallpaper metadata
  • Multi-endpoint call support
  • Source type support for Visual Voicemail
  • Carrier config options to manage video telephony
Nougat/Android 7.0
(2016 Aug 22/API-24)		  

  • Unicode 9.0 emoji
  • Better multitasking
  • Multi-window mode (PIP, Freeform window)
  • Seamless system updates (with dual system partition)
  • Better performance and code size thanks to new JIT
    Compiler
  

  • Sustained Performance Mode (SPM) API
  • Vulkan 3D rendering API
  • Daydream virtual reality platform
Marshmallow/Android 6.0.1
(2015 Dec 7/API-23)		 New emojis
Marshmallow/Android 6
(2015 Oct 5/API-23)		  

  • USB Type-C support
  • Fingerprint Authentication support
  • Better battery life with “deep sleep”
  • Permissions dashboard
  • Android Pay
  • MIDI support
  • Google Now improvements
  

  • Custom Chrome Tabs for better in app browser support
  • App Permissions management update
Lollipop/Android 5.1.1
(2015 Apr 21/API-22)		  

  • Speed improvement
  • Bug fixes
Lollipop/Android 5.1
(2015 Mar 9/API-22)		  

  • Multiple SIM cards support
  • Quick settings shortcuts to join Wi-Fi networks or control
    Bluetooth devices
  • Lock protection if lost or stolen
  • High Definition voice call
  • Stability and performance enhancements
Lollipop/Android 5.0.2
(2014 Dec 19/API-21)		  

  • Performance improvements and bug fixes
Lollipop/Android 5.0.1
(2014 Dec 2/API-21)		  

  • bug fixes, fix issues with video playback and password
    failures
Lollipop/Android 5.0
(2014 Oct 17/API-21)		  

  • New design (Material design)
  • Speed improvement
  • Battery consumption improvement
  

  • Several new API
  • Tracking battery consumption app
KitKat/Android 4.4.4
(2014 Jun 23/API-19)		  

  • Fix Heartbleed / OpenSSL vulnerability
KitKat/Android 4.4.3
(2014 Apr 14/API-19)		  

  • Bug fixes
  • Enable Sprint Spark band 26 and band 41
KitKat/Android 4.4.2
(2013 Dec 9/API-19)		  

  • Bug fixes
  • Security enhancements
KitKat/Android 4.4.1
(2013 Dec 5/API-19)		  

  • Bug fixes
  • Enhance the camera on the Nexus 5
KitKat/Android 4.4
(2013 Oct 31/API-19)		  

  • Screen recording
  • New Translucent system UI
  • Enhanced notification access
  • System-wide settings for closed captioning
  • Performance improvements
  

  • Public API for SMS management.
  • Improved memory usage
  • Security enhancements (SELinux enforcing mode, new
    cryptographic algorithms, VPN per user…)
  • NFC Host Card Emulation (for wireless payment, loyalty
    programs…)
  • Printing Framework
  • Storage Access Framework
  • Hardware Sensor Batching
  • Full-screen immersive mode
  • GLES2.0 SurfaceFlinger
  • Chromium WebView
  • Audio tunneling to DSP
  • Audio monitoring
  • Wi-Fi certified Miracast
  • New Bluetooth profile
  • IR Blasters API
  • Wi-Fi Tunneled Direct Link Setup (TDLS) support
  • Tools for analyzing memory use (procstats, on-device memory
    status and profiling)
Jelly Bean/Android 4.3
(2013 Jul 24/API-18)		  

  • Dial pad auto-complete
  • Photo Sphere enhancements
  • Camera app UI updated
  • 4K resolution support
  • Ability to create restricted profiles for tablets
  • Hebrew and Arabic right-to-left (RTL) support
  • Bluetooth Low Energy (BLE) support
  • Bluetooth Audio/Video Remote Control Profile (AVRCP) 1.3
    support
  • Security and performance enhancements
  

  • OpenGL for Embedded Systems 3.0 graphics support
  • Logging and analyzing enhancements
  • Wi-Fi scanning API
  • Improved DRM (digital rights management) API
  • VP8 encoding
Jelly Bean/Android 4.2.2
(2013 Feb 11/API-17)		  

  • Allow toggling Wi-Fi and Bluetooth state in Quick Settings
    using long-press
  • Shows the percentage and estimated time remaining in the active
    download notifications
  • Wireless charging and low battery sounds changed
  • Gallery app updated for faster loading with new image
    transition
  • Performance enhancements and bug fixes (Bluetooth A2DP audio
    streaming fix…)
  

  • Secure USB debugging (allow debugging to authenticated
    computers only)
Jelly Bean/Android 4.2.1
(2012 Nov 27/API-17)		  

  • Fix missing december bug in the People app
  • Add support for Bluetooth gamepads and joysticks HID
    devices
Jelly Bean/Android 4.2
(2012 Nov 13/API-17)		  

  • Lockscreen widgets
  • 360 degree images with Photo Sphere
  • Gesture Typing, for faster typing
  • Wireless display with Miracast
  • Daydream to display information when idle or docked
  • Multi-user for tablets
  

  • vsync timing
  • Triple buffering
  • reduced touch latency
  • CPU input boost
  • Native RTL support – mirrors the display from manifest
    prop
  • External display support – Display Manager
  • Nested fragments
  • Renderscript Compute – run tasks on the GPU (supported
    devices)
  • Renderscript ScriptGroups, built-in intrinsics like blur,
  • FilterScript is a subset of Renderscript made for high
    performance image processing
Jelly Bean/Android 4.1.2
(2012 Oct 9/API-16)		  

  • Enable Home screen rotation
  • Fix bugs and enhance performances
Jelly Bean/Android 4.1.1
(2012 Jul 23/API-16)		  

  • Fix a bug on screen orientation
Jelly Bean/Android 4.1
(2012 Jul 9/API-16)		  

  • Google Now ( http://youtu.be/pPqliPzHYyc )
  • Voice Search
  • Speed enhancements
  • Camera app improvements
  • Accessibility: gesture mode, enable braille external
    keyboards…
  

  • app stack navigation to define a parent activity in manifest
    for deep navigation
  • MediaActionSound class to make sounds like when a camera takes
    a photo
  • NFC supports large payloads over bluetooth
  • WIFI/WIFI-Direct service discovery
  • Large, detailed, multi-action notifications
  • Input manager allows you to query input devices
Ice Cream Sandwich/Android 4.0.4
(2012 Mar 28/API-15)		  

  • stability improvements
  • better camera performance
  • smoother screen rotation
Ice Cream Sandwich/Android 4.0.3
(2011 Dec 16/API-15)		  

  • Social stream API in Contacts provider to show updates
    associated to your contacts
  • Video stabilization and QVGA video resolution API access
  • Accessibility API refinements for screen readers
  • Calendar provider updates
Ice Cream Sandwich/Android 4.0.2
(2011 Nov 28/API-14)		 Minor fixes
Ice Cream Sandwich/Android 4.0.1
(2011 Oct 19/API-14)		  

  • Facial recognition (Face Unlock)
  • UI use Hardware acceleration
  • Better voice recognition (dictating/Voice typing)
  • Web browser, allows up to 16 tabs
  • Updated launcher (customizable)
  • Android Beam app to exchange data through NFC
Ice Cream Sandwich/Android 4.0
(2011 Oct 18/API-14)		  

  • New lock screen actions
  • Improved text input and spell-checking
  • Control over network data
  • Email app supports EAS v14
  • WI-FI direct
  • BlueTooth Health Device Profile
  

  • Low-level streaming multimedia (Khronos OpenMAX AL
  • Grid Layout
  • Spell checking service
  • Address Space Layout Randomization
  • VPN client API
  • Remote Device camera enable/disable
  • ZSL exposure, continuous focus, and image zoom
  • Flags to help control system ui elements like system bar from
    apps
Honeycomb/Android 3.2.6
(2012 Feb 15/API-13)		 Minor fixes
Honeycomb/Android 3.2.4
(2011 Dec 15/API-13)		 Added “Pay as you go” for tablets
Honeycomb/Android 3.2.2
(2011 Sep 30/API-13)		 Minor fixes
Honeycomb/Android 3.2.2
(2011 Sep 20/API-13)		  

  • Android Market updates including easier automatic updates
  • Google Books updates
  • Wi-Fi improvements
  • Chinese handwriting prediction improved
 

Honeycomb/Android 3.2
(2011 Jul 15/API-13)

  

  • Optimizations for a wider range of tablets
  • Compatibility display mode (zoom for fixed-sized apps)
  • Media sync from SD card
  

  • Extended API for managing screens support
    • New resource qualifiers for screens support
    • New manifest attributes for screen-size compatibility
    • Screen compatibility mode which allows for phone apps to appear
      as if they were still on a phone
Honeycomb/Android 3.1
(2011 May 10/API-12)		  

  • UI improvements
  • Open Accessory API
  • USB host API
  • Mice, joysticks, gamepads… support
  • Resizable Home screen widgets
  • MTP
    notifications
  • RTP API
    for audio
Honeycomb/Android 3.0
(2011 Feb 22/API-11)		  

  • Multi core support
  • Better tablet support
  • Updated 3D UI
    • customizable homescreens
    • recent applications viewing
    • redone keyboard layout
  • Media/Picture transport protocol
  • Google Talk video chat
  • Google eBooks
  • “Private browsing”
  • System-wide Clipboard
  • HTTP Live streaming
  

  • contextual action bar
  • Fragments first introduced(support library now supports it as
    well)
  • Hardware-accelerated 2D graphics
  • Renderscript 3D graphics engine
  • Pluggable DRM framework
  • device administration
  • High performance Animation Framework
  • RTP streaming API
  • Forced rendering of layers
  • High performance WIFI lock
  • Vew network traffic stats
  • ADTS AAC and FLAC audio
  • LRU cache
Gingerbread/Android 2.3.7
(2011 Sep 21/API-10)		  

  • Google Wallet support for the Nexus S 4G
Gingerbread/Android 2.3.6
(2011 Sep 2/API-10)		  

  • Voice search issue fixed
Gingerbread/Android 2.3.5
(2011 Jul 25/API-10)		  

  • Improved network performance for the Nexus S 4G
  • Fixed Bluetooth issues on the Samsung Galaxy S
  • Gmail app. improvements
Gingerbread/Android 2.3.4
(2011 May 10/API-10)		  

  • Voice or video chat using Google Talk
  

  • Open Accessory API
Gingerbread/Android 2.3.3
(2011 Feb 9/API-10)		  

  • NFC API
    improvements (peer to peer communication…)
  • added unsecure bluetooth sockets
Gingerbread/Android 2.3
(2010 Dec 6/API-9)		  

  • Updated UI
  • Improved keyboard ease of use
  • Improved copy/paste
  • Improved power management
  • Social networking features
  • Near Field Communication support
  • Native VoIP/SIP support
  • Video call support
  

  • performance – concurrent garbage collection, faster event
    distribution, updated video drivers
  • NDK – Native Asset Manager, Native Activities + event handling,
    khronos api
  • audio effects api
  • VP8, WebM, AAC, AMR wideband
  • Multiple camera sensor support
  • strictmode debugging
  • media framework replaces OpenCore
Froyo/Android 2.3
(2010 May 20/API-8)		  

  • Speed improvements
  • JIT implementation
  • USB Tethering
  • Applications installation to the expandable memory
  • Upload file support in the browser
  • Animated GIFs
Eclair/Android 2.3
(2010 Jan 12/API-7)		  

  • Updated UI
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Ranjan is having 15+ years of experience in Software Development, lover of all things in programming or coding. Love to code in Mobile apps (IOS, Android, Power Apps, Xamarin, Flutter), Machine Learning ( Beginner ), Dot Net, Database, WordPress, and many more as required on project-specific. Besides this love to travel and cook.