Ever since the first Android P preview came out, the developer community has been trying to run the latest version of Android on phones other than the Google Pixel and Pixel 2 for which it was released. For example, developers from the LineageOS team have been trying to port it to other devices using Project Treble.
But now, XDA-Developers has scored a potential ROM meant for testing by Huawei and was able to try the Android P Developer Preview on Huawei Mate 10 Pro. This, as the forum notes, is because OEMs receive early build for testing and developing their own skins on top of vanilla Android much before the source code for AOSP build is released.
The Android P Developer Preview build integrates some of the features of Android P into Huawei’s proprietary ROM, EMUI. It is named “EMUI 8.2.0” which ideally should be “EMUI 9.0.0” given that Huawei recently decided to match Android versioning in for its ROM. Nonetheless, key Android P features were found on the ROM, including the Android P Easter egg.
XDA also found text selection zoom feature working on this build. However, since Huawei heavily customizes the appearance of its ROMs heavily, it did not have notable elements matching the Android P’s design flair – likely to be called “Material Design 2”. The build does not feature the swipe gesture navigation feature which Google accidentally teased recently. It is likely that Huawei implements its own version of the feature as it already aped iPhone X’s gesture navigation features in its “single-key navigation” bar.
It seems to be a good news for Huawei Mate 10 and Mate 10 Pro users as the development gives evidence to the fact that Huawei is already testing Android P and incorporating features that are not present in EMUI already. The Mate 10 series was launched in October last year and came with Oreo out-of-the-box i.e. within two months of Oreo’s official launch. Likewise, we expect Huawei to upgrade its phone to Android P without making users wait for too long.
Meanwhile, you can check our coverage on the best features released with the Android P Developer Preview in this video:
