Android 14 Reveals Off iOS-Model Safety Options in New Preview
Android 14’s second developer preview is now obtainable for obtain. It’s extra feature-filled than the earlier rendition, which got here out final month, with a specific deal with options like having the ability to log into web sites by scanning your face. Sound acquainted? And the excellent news is that we’re a few month away from the Android 14 beta, which is the preview for the remainder of us.
Android 14 has a specific emphasis on working throughout completely different kind components. Google is betting on the foldable scene to assist carry Android into this subsequent stage of the cell platform wars, and it’s offering builders with documentation on methods to design for various display setups. However essentially the most user-facing a part of this launch is the brand new privateness, safety, and localization options—they principally enhance upon what’s already obtainable in Android 13, relatively than introducing new capabilities fully.
In case you’re on Android 13, you already know that apps ask you for permission earlier than accessing your picture library. Android 14 will pull an iOS-style transfer by permitting you to pick out which pictures and information an app can entry individually. That is useful if, as an example, you’re utilizing some foolish third-party app to make your newest selfie appear to be Godzilla. You must most likely solely permit that app to entry a couple of pictures at a time. This function has technically been obtainable by Google Play Providers for some time already, and is at the moment appropriate with gadgets courting again to Android 4.4. However just some apps have been using it. Android 14 could have the function formally built-in all through the working system.
Android 14 will even provide a brand new credentials supervisor, which Google hopes will “make sign-in simpler” for people throughout the working system. This builds upon a capability already obtainable in Android and even the Chrome browser. As soon as the replace hits, it’s going to make it simpler to log in to any account you will have saved in your password chain, moreover a Google one, together with your face or fingerprint. It’s much like iOS letting you log into apps and web sites with Face ID. And it’s going to make it simpler to multitask between completely different accounts.
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As with each software program replace, Android 14 will provide basic usability enhancements. Foreground apps—apps you might be utilizing or have lately accessed—can now extra simply set off actions within the background with out fully taking up your display. This second developer preview additionally contains higher reminiscence administration for the system, permitting the OS to right away place an app into the cached state in order that it’s not consuming up the battery.
I’m notably enthusiastic about Android 14’s capability to dismiss beforehand un-dismissable notifications within the drop-down shade. Suppose persistent icons from background apps that received’t go away with a swipe. Google says you’ll now be capable of make them disappear when you unlock the cellphone. However something “vital to system performance,” like wearables and related gadgets, will nonetheless hand around in the notification shade.
Per-app language skills are additionally getting extra sturdy within the subsequent software program replace. Google will now provide regional preferences within the settings menu. For instance, Individuals can set their most well-liked items for temperature to Fahrenheit, and the cellphone will preserve displaying it that manner even when they go to Europe. Previous to this, the temperature unit would robotically swap over in case your cellphone noticed you had been in a area that makes use of Celsius.
There may be extra to the Android 14 developer preview. If you wish to dig into it your self, you possibly can flash the second Android 14 developer preview onto your Android system. Nevertheless, I counsel you towards doing this in your day by day driver. The developer preview is out there for Pixel 4a gadgets and up. Or, wait a month till issues are a tad extra steady for the official Android 14 beta. Google says on its developer timeline that the beta will hit someday in April.
