Google has announced a change in the organization of testing future releases of the Android platform that are still under development. The separate Android Developer Preview releases have been discontinued, and instead, there is now a continuously existing Android Canary branch, allowing early-stage application developers to test the changes and improvements made to the API. The formation of Android beta releases, which focus not on showcasing new APIs but on testing user-visible functionality, will continue unchanged.
The key difference in the new model is that Developer Preview releases were created separately and required a special installation on devices each time, whereas Canary is a parallel test branch that is continuously updated (rolling stream) and reflects the current state of the platform's development. You only need to flash your device to the Canary branch once, and all subsequent updates with changes will be installed automatically via OTA (over-the-air). Builds with the Canary branch are prepared for flashing on Pixel devices and will soon be available in Android Emulator (currently only available in test versions of Android Studio and Android SDK).
An advantage of the separate Canary branch is its independence from releases, allowing for the continued testing of new APIs even after the next Android release has entered the beta-testing stage. Previously, Developer Preview builds were tied to the next release and ceased to be formed after beta releases appeared, which prevented the testing of experimental APIs that had not yet been finalized for inclusion in the beta version. This issue does not occur with Canary, allowing developers to continue experimenting with still-raw APIs, irrespective of the stage of preparation for future releases. It is not guaranteed that all experimental features available in the Canary branch will make it into the next release.
Source: opennet.ru
