✍️ 14th April 2023
Android 14
Google has just released beta version 1 of its upcoming Android version 14. There were a couple of developer previews released earlier in this version but they were not stable. Pixel 4A is out from this version and will no longer get this update officially from Google. Now when coming to new features, I think this is the dumbest of all the earlier versions. Google used to follow a major UI revision in one release and then followed by a feature release polishing it. The current Material UI 2.0 (Material You) was released on Android 12 and it is still continued in Android 14 with no major UI changes. Personally, I do not have issues with it but one will not feel any difference/upgrade when they move to Android 14 which is kinda disappointing.
The build number for this release is UPB1.230309.014
Release Timeline:
Coming to few new features spotted in this beta1 are
1. Selective Photo / Video access to Apps
This is a direct rip-off of Apple's iOS feature. Good that it has now arrived on Android. It is a much-required privacy feature. We often want to share one or a few photos/videos with others on apps like Whatsapp for which we need to allow the app to access entire media on the phone. With Android 14, like in iOS, we can select the photos and videos we want to share and give access to only to those and apps will not have access to other media on the phone.
2. Regional Preferences
In Android 14, we can set preferences like temperature units, start day of the week, and languages. Applications can read these preferences and set them automatically without asking during their setup.
3. Predictive Back Gesture
Gesture navigation is there for some time now. With Android 14, users will see a glimpse of the back page during the navigation. This is currently working in all the setup pages and a few Google apps. Also, we see a new back pill in the system theme color.
4. Transperant Navigation Bar
The navigation pill at the bottom will blend into the app and there will not be a black around it anymore. This is especially good for AMOLED displays which get display burn-in. Again this is currently working only in a few Google apps.
5. Flash Notifications
Now we can enable the camera flashlight for notifications and calls like iOS and other Android custom ROMs without any third-party application.
6. Battery Optimization
Google says that they really worked on app revoking in the background which will reduce the background battery consumption.
Final Thoughts:
Definitely, these are not-so-exciting features for a major release. I hope we get more features in the upcoming beta release and in the final version.
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