Android 8.0 is finally here and we all are excited with websites and forums churning out review after review for the latest addition to the Android bandwagon. We too have already talked about Oreo in our past posts and here we are going to talk about a few changes that Oreo has brought with us. We are sure that you know already how the format in which Android build numbers are written for ages has remained the same over the past so many years. However people are in for a big surprise as the format is now being changed and the first look can be seen in the new Android 8.0 of course.
The non preview version of 8.0 has been released for the first time, which is something unlike anything that has ever been done before. The original build number usually consisted of three letters which were then followed up by three characters – however in this case the whole build number has been divided into three main sections or blocks which are made of numbers as well as letters – spaced using periods. You might find this whole structure to be a bit confusing but it can not be denied that this new way of writing build number is more informative and thus more efficient than the older one. For example, here is how the build number for Android 8.0 Oreo and any other later version might be written – PVBB.YYMMDD.bbb.
Android Oreo 8.0
In the above example, we can easily spot the three primary sections differentiated using the periods. The first such section is PVBB where the first variable P is denoting Platform release – thus The P variable would be written as O for Oreo (in case of this new release). The next one is V, which represents vertical. Usually P for primary platform branch would be used to denote the vertical. The next character BB is denoting the alphanumeric representation which would represent the exact code branch that is being used in the build of the specific operating system. Here, the first Oreo which was released for Pixel, is going to be denoted by R6 – making the first section of our build number as OPR6.
That brings us to the next section of the build number which is also the centre of it – YYMMDD. This one sure is an easy guess – and we hope you have figured it out by now. Without being more of a tease, let us reassure that it indeed is the date, month and year denoting the branching of release or when it was first synced with development branch. You may note that this date is not exactly the build date of Android but more of the code which represents different builds using the same development branch. Thus the last section of the build number bbb is in fact a collection of characters which make up a number using which you can differentiate amongst various builds that are written using same date code owing to the same development branch. If you check out the version of Oreo released for Pixel, you would see that it stands on 012 right now.
Thus the build number that Pixel shows for the new Oreo comes out to be OPR6.170623.012, which basically makes the whole understanding of the Android build too easy and informative. We know from this build number that the build number denotes O as in Oreo for a primary platform branch. The R6 is basically the code branch. We also are informed that the development branch was synced with the build on the 23rd of June this year, and the 012 makes it easy to understand that this is the 12th build using the same variables.
So, what does your build number say? Can you read it easily now and extract useful information? Let us know in the comments below.