Technology giant Google is expected to announce the next installment of its Android operating system i.e Android 9 at the Google I/O 2018 which starts from today. However, the company has already released a beta version of the Android 9 for some selected devices like Google Pixel, Pixel XL, Pixel 2 and the Pixel 2 XL. Taking advantage of the beta version rollout, a third party developer has apparently ported the ROM for the Moto Z smartphone to run Android 9.
This makes the Moto Z the first non-Google smartphone to run on Android 9. However, since it is a third party ROM, one has to manually unlock the bootloader and flash the latest software from Google. Since this ROM does not come from the manufacturer of the phone Motorola, it is not recommended to flash it on the daily driver and to take a backup of all the files and data before proceeding to install the update.
To install Android 9 on the Moto Z smartphone, you need to unlock the bootloader first and then install custom recovery software like Team Win Recovery Project (TWRP). Then you need to download the beta version of Android 9 from the official source and flash it using the custom recovery software you just installed. After the installation, you need to set it up like any Android smartphone and that is it. If the process is successful, Android 9 will start running on your Moto Z device.
It is recommended not to try to install the software on any phone other than the Moto Z as it may corrupt the device and make it unusable.
However, there are some features that are reportedly not working on the Moto Z after the Android 9 update. According to the third party developer, the flashlight, secondary SIM card slot, and the Moto MOD battery are not working.
Talking about the new features that Android 9 is expected to bring on board, the support for the notch feature is the most promising one. Additionally, Android 9 will also bring UI improvements, longer battery life by blocking apps from running idle in the background and much more.