Android Nougat is full of great new features, but it’s not even available on most phones yet. That doesn’t mean is slowing down. There will be a few point-releases over the coming months, beginning with Android 7.1.

just announced the Developer eview of 7.1 on the Android Developers Blog. It’s not quite available just yet—the blog says it’s coming “later this month.” says it has been working with hardware vendors on 7.1 for some time, but it needs to make sure app developers can test update their offerings before release.

at’s new in 7.1

Some of the nifty stuff you see in the xel phones is part of Android 7.1, some of it is exclusive to the xel phone (for now). break down the differences here.

’s new blog post details a few of the new features tools developers users will get in 7.1:

For developers, Android 7.1 adds new capabilities to help you drive engagement in your app deliver an improved user experience, such as:

• App shortcuts A — lets you surface key actions directly in the launcher take your users deep into your app instantly. You can create up to 5 shortcuts, either statically or dynamically.
• Circular app icons support — lets you provide great-looking rounded icon resources that match the look of xel other launchers.
• Enhanced wallpaper metadata — lets you provide metadata about your wallpapers to any picker displaying the wallpapers as a preview. You can show existing metadata such as label, description, author, as well as a new context UR title to link to more information.

Android 7.1 also adds these much-requested developer features to the platform:

• Image keyboard support — exps the types of content that users can enter from their keyboards, letting them express themselves through custom stickers, animated gifs, more. Apps can tell the keyboard what types of content they accept, keyboards can deliver all of the images other content that they offer to the user. For broad compatibility, this A will also be available in the support library.
• Storage manager Intent — lets an app take the user directly to a new Settings screen to clear unused files free up storage space on the device.

For carriers calling apps, the platform includes new As to support multi-endpoint calling  new telephony configuration options.

’s just-announced xel phones will ship with 7.1 on October 20, but it will probably be at least a month or two before it’s available in general release for most Android developers, surely most phones won’t get updated for months after that. Nexus owners excepted, of course.

If you have a Nexus device want to try out 7.1, you can easily enroll on the beta program.