Good news for those that love tinkering with Android devices. Last month, Google launched the first developer preview of Android 14. Now, just a month later, the company released the second developer preview, and it comes with some pretty neat updates.
Android Developer Preview 2 builds on the changes offered by the first developer preview and enhances it further. Specifically, the update focuses on newly added security and privacy features, such as allowing users to select what photos an app can access on their device.
One of the most notable features of Android 14 Developer 2 is related to security and privacy, specifically the Android photo picker. Changes now allow users to select which photos can be accessed by an app. That way, users don’t have to share their entire photo library with an app. There’s also a new screenshot detection API to prevent unnecessary access to a user’s data.
Aside from photos, Android 14 will also give users more, safer ways to sign in. A new API will offer password-less sign-ins via passkeys. This feature has been in the first developer preview, but Google says it now comes with an updated user interface along with some changes to the API itself.
There are also new optimization features made to Android’s memory management system. The company says that several seconds after an app goes into the cached state, background work is disallowed outside of conventional Android app lifecycle APIs.
On the user side, expect some personalization changes specifically with temperature units, the first day of the week, and numbering systems. “A European living in the United States might prefer temperature units to be in Celsius rather than Fahrenheit and for apps to treat Monday as the beginning of the week instead of the US default of Sunday,” says Google.
Google says system images are available for the Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 6a, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, and Pixel 4a (5G), and images for the Android Emulator.
Do note the Android Developer Preview 2 is still intended for developers as the name implies, and expect there to be a lot of bugs. As a result, not a lot of user-facing features of Android 14 have been revealed either. For users excited to try the app, expect the Android 14 betas to drop later this year. We won’t stop you from trying it though.
You may read the full changes here.
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