It may be a few months before Google's older devices see the update.

Google quietly announced Android 7.1 alongside its new Pixel phones yesterday, but it wasn't immediately clear which of the new Android features were specific to Google's phones and which would be available to other Android phones.

The full list of Pixel-specific enhancements is a mix of hardware-specific stuff and Google's software and services:

Pixel Launcher—swipe up for all apps, new Search Box, date/weather header on home
Google Assistant
Unlimited original quality photo/video backup to Google Photos
Smart Storage—when storage is full, automatically removes old backed up photos/videos
Phone/Chat support (new support tab in settings), screen-share functionality
Quick switch adapter for wired setup from Android or iPhone
Pixel Camera:
Electronic Image Stabilization (“video stabilization”) 2.0
Pro Features
White Balance Presets
Exposure Compensation
AE/AF Locking
Viewfinder grid modes
HW-accelerated (on Qualcomm Hexagon coprocessor) HDR+ image processing
Smartburst
Sensor Hub processor with tightly integrated sensors (accel, gyro, mag) + connectivity (Wi-Fi, Cell, GPS)
Cosmetic
Solid navbar icons with home affordance for Assistant
SysUI accent color theming
Wallpaper picker with new wallpapers and sounds
New setup look and feel
Dynamic calendar date icon
Some of these things may eventually make it to other Android phones—the Pixel launcher, the Google Assistant, and some of the UI stuff. Others, like the phone and chat support features and the unlimited storage of photos and video, could come to other phones but are more likely to remain Google-exclusive to add value to the Pixels.

The list of features available to other phones, including older Nexus and Pixel devices that eventually get Android 7.1, is a smaller but still respectable collection of improvements. It's a minor update in the vein of Android 4.3 or 5.1, and it's probably representative of what we can expect from Android's quarterly updates going forward.

Night Light (this shifts the color temperature of your screen a la iOS' Night Shift mode or f.lux)
Touch/display performance improvements
Moves (Fingerprint swipe-down gesture—opt-in)
Seamless A/B system updates
Daydream VR mode
Developer features:
App shortcuts/shortcut manager APIs
Circular app icons support
Keyboard image insertion
Fingerprint sensor gesture to open/close notification shade
Manual storage manager Intent for apps
Improved VR thread scheduling
Enhanced wallpaper metadata
Multi-endpoint call support
Support for various MNO requirements
PCDMA voice privacy property
Source type support for Visual Voicemail
Carrier config options for managing video telephony
Manual storage manager - identifies apps and files and apps using storage

Android Police reports that Android 7.1 will be released as a developer preview for some older Nexus and Pixel devices by the end of the year, but we don't know which ones just yet—Android 7.0 runs on the Nexus 6P, 5X, 6, and 9 as well as the Nexus Player and Pixel C, but Google technically doesn't have to keep providing version updates to the Nexus 6 or 9 after this month. It's not clear why the software that will ship on the Pixel phones is still only "beta" quality when running on any other phone, and it's too bad that Google's older devices won't get the update as promptly as they have in the past, but it's going to happen eventually.

We also have no idea when Android 7.1 will be available to any of Google's hardware partners, many of which are still getting around to announcing their update plans for 7.0. I'm still hoping that Google has an answer to the update question that it just isn't ready to tell us yet, especially since Android updates are going to be coming out more frequently than ever. At least for now, however, the only way to make sure you've always got the newest and best software is to shell out $650 or more for a brand-new phone directly from Google.