Android 14 is the operating system that will power the best Android phones of 2023 and 2024. It has bought a ton of quality-of-life improvements like better battery life, improved accessibility, and a revamped back navigation gesture. It’s definitely shaping up to be a bigger update than what Android 13 was.
After two previews for developers in February and March, Google has published the first beta of Android 14. This implies that anyone with a Pixel device that is eligible for the Android Beta program can easily test the future software by enrolling their device on the Android Beta website.
According to Google’s release schedule, another beta will be made available in May. Two “Platform Stability” releases (not Release Candidates, but conceptually similar) will follow in June.
Android 14 Overview;
We can easily report that Google improves and brings a variety of new aspects into its Android versions every time. Changes to the media handle and the help of alerts, anonymity and haptic input enhancements and more polished notification interface makes quite a difference.
Android 14 Features;
1. An Improved Back Navigation Gesture
When employing gesture navigation, the Android 14 Beta will display a new back arrow, a feature introduced by Google. The arrow, like with the rest of the System UI, is now Material You-themed, meaning it automatically adopts the color scheme of your device’s wallpaper or theme.
The new back button pairs well with Android 14’s predictive animations for returning to previous screens. Apps that take advantage of this feature will show you a sneak peek at the next screen when you slide your phone’s screen in a backwards direction. It explains why Android does that back gesture.
2. An Enhanced Share Sheet
One of Android’s strongest features is the Share sheet, which facilitates information exchange between applications. With Android 14, Google is enhancing the share menu’s effectiveness by letting developers add their own actions.
Many Android apps already do this, but they do so by constructing their own unique share sheet. To address this, in the Android 14 Beta, Google has introduced a new API that will allow apps to show more actions within the native share sheet.
In Android 14, the preview of all the photographs you are sharing will be displayed in the Share sheet. There’s a cap of three images for now.
3. Faster and More Secure PIN Entry
By removing the animation that plays when you enter your PIN, Android 14 Beta makes entering a PIN more secure. It was long overdue that the PIN input animation could be toggled, given that the pattern trail animation could be disabled.
It’s a tiny tweak, however now tapping the keypad won’t highlight any buttons. Shoulder surfers won’t be able to as easily read your PIN with this.
In addition, if you use a PIN of six digits or more, the operating system will instantly unlock your device upon verification of accurate entry. To confirm the PIN on Android versions before to 13, hit the Enter key.
4. Separate Ringtone and Notification Volume Sliders
With Android 14 Beta, you may now adjust the volume of your ringtone and notifications independently of one another. Incoming call ringtone can be adjusted to be louder than alert for notifications. There have been a number of custom Android skins, including Samsung’s One UI, that have included this feature for some time, but it has only just been part of the official Android experience.
5. Accessibility Improvements
Several changes were made to make Android 14 Beta more accessible. In comparison to Android 13, which only enables a 130% scaling factor, the text size can now be increased by as much as 200%. Google plans to use non-linear font scaling to address any user interface (UI) difficulties that may arise from the bigger font size. Since excessively enlarging already-large text could result in its being truncated, this is the case.
Support for Flash alerts is also a significant improvement to accessibility. A smartphone’s display or camera LED can be programmed to blink whenever a new notification is received. You may even make them both flash at the same time if you like.
Finally, a minor but nice enhancement is the availability of both Imperial and Metric units of measurement worldwide.
Also Read: Android 12: The New Milestone
Google Will Continue Adding New Features to Android 14
Google plans to deploy Android 14 as a stable update for Pixel phones in August or September, so the beta testing phase will continue until then. Until then, the business is likely to keep introducing novel OS features and, on sometimes, eliminating others.
Please be aware that the aforementioned features may not be present in the Android 14 build of your non-Pixel phone. This is due to the fact that each Android skin developer can pick and choose which functionalities to implement.
The following Google Pixel smartphones are compatible with the Android 14 First Developer Preview:
- Pixel 7 & 7 Pro
- Pixel 6a
- Pixel 6 & 6 Pro
- Pixel 5a 5G
- Pixel 5
- Pixel 4a (5G)
