Usually, it's big new marketable features that can be shown off with screenshots or GIFs that get people excited, but Android Q Beta 2 also includes some less visually interesting developer-facing changes that are no less exciting — at least, in my opinion. Chief among them is a new API for microphone directionality, allowing applications to pull audio from different directions.

This may seem boring, but microphone directionality has actually been a bit of a problem in the past on Android. A good example is our recent coverage of the OnePlus 6 and 6T, which choose the wrong microphone in some circumstances and with certain applications.

Android Q Beta 2 is the first release to include this new MicrophoneDirection API, which allows for developers to specify audio capture from two directions (front or back), plus explicit external support and a request for no direction at all. It also supports specifying "zoom" for microphones that support variable field dimensions.

Interested developers can take a look at the precise documentation to make the most of this new API.

Source: Android Developer Documentation, Android Developers Blog