It's been just about a year when Google unexpectedly announced the first preview of Android Nougat. Today, the company is launching the first developer preview of the next version of its mobile operating system, currently code-named Android O (but experts are really hoping it'll become Android Oreo once it's released).

According to Deccan Cronicle, the latest version of Android is going to function through four preview versions. While the first preview is already out, preview 2 is expected to be available in mid-May, preview 3 will be available mid-June and the 4th preview will be available sometime in August. The final release is expected to take place in Q3 of 2017. The schedule is similar to last year's Android Nougat preview program.

As per Tech Crunch, one major difference between the early Android Nougat and O previews is that Google immediately made over-the-air updates of Android N available to anybody who wanted to try it and surprisingly those early releases were surprisingly stable and functional. This time around, Google is not launching the new release into the Android Beta channel right away. Instead, developers who own a Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Pixel XL or other device will have to manually download and flash their devices. After a bit more testing with developers, Google will open enrollment into O through Android Beta.

Android O is adding one new feature known as notification channels. This will give developers the ability to group notifications from their apps into groups for example user have a news app and want to group notifications by "politics" or "technology". Users will then be able to manage those notifications based on those channels which means that users hopefully never have to get a notification from The New York Times about a sports event again.