Google and Motorola debut Android ‘Test Drive’

Motorola has officially confirmed that it will be giving its customers early access to new builds of Android ahead of their official rollout via a new program called ‘Test Drive.’

The idea of Test Drive is to get consumer feedback on new builds of Android before they’re officially released into the wild.

The scheme kicks off with Android 4.2 and is one of the first instances we’ve seen of Google and Motorola actively working together since the former bought up the latter in 2011. 

Here’s the official line from Motorola: 

‘We know it’s important for many of you to get the latest Android software upgrades onto your phones as quickly as possible. With that in mind, we’re also introducing Test Drive, a new program that will allow consumers to take our major software upgrades for a trial run and provide valuable feedback before we launch the upgrade publicly.’  

‘Starting with Android 4.2, the next iteration of Jelly Bean, we will release a preview of our software to a few hundred consumers that sign up for Test Drive.  More details on how to sign-up and participate will be announced on the blog soon.’

Test Drive will be limited and does require that you register, so we’d suggest doing that as soon as possible should you want to take part. Motorola has not discussed how limited the programme will be but we’d expect it to keep the numbers relatively low – no more than a 1,000 or so. 

Either way, by signing up for Test Drive you’ll be sidestepping the usual process of getting updates and be working in cahoots with Google and Motorola, as well as actively contributing to the evolution of Android. 

It almost sounds too good to be true… and perhaps it is. Participating in something like this is likely to void the warranty of your handset if something goes wrong, so that's definitely something worth considering before you sign your life away. 

That said the updates are coming straight from Google and Motorola, so they're likely to be pretty secure. 

More news on this as we get.