Surprisingly, Google came around the corner yesterday with the first developer preview for Android 14. At this stage, very little can be said about the multifaceted nature of the new Android version, but that – as of now – accessibility, battery life and security are the focus. With Android 14, fonts can be scaled to larger sizes, developers can address people in their apps with gender-specific language, and it also continues the foundations of Android 12L and Android 13 and further advances Android on larger displays and the foldable form factor.
For now, Google is preventing apps from being sideloaded. Apps require minimum requirements of Android 6.0 (Marshmallow), otherwise a warning will appear. While the next developer preview is scheduled for March, the first beta versions should start as early as April. As in previous years, the final release is planned for late summer or early fall. 
In the meantime, further details about innovations in Android 14 have also been revealed. On the news front, as usual, is Mishaal Rahman, who looks set to make a comeback on XDA. For detailed information I can refer to his Android articles with a clear conscience. According to his reporting, that’s how they are “predictive gestures” part of Android 14, which he had previously discovered in Android 13. When swiping back within an Android app, Android 14 shows a preview. Means: When performing the back gesture, users can see in advance whether they are going back to the start screen, to a previous page of the app or even to another app. Then looks like this:
Android 14 brings improvements in data protection and privacy and is able to do so too without the photo picker restricting access to photos and videos. Similar to the handling under iOS, users can select which photos and videos an app can access via the photo picker. However, this is completely independent of the use of the Android 13 API. This is practical, because so far hardly any apps have used the new possibilities. You change the media access authorization and apply it retrospectively to existing apps.
On-board resources are also intended to create a possibility that many OEM providers have already integrated themselves, including OnePlus. Android 14 should do that Allow app cloning, to ensure use with two accounts at the same time. Many apps, including WhatsApp, only allow the use of a single account. An app clone gives access to two separate app instances.
Also new: direct integration of the Google and Samung health platforms. We remember: Since Wear OS 3 or at the latest with the Pixel Watch, smartwatches and wearables have come back into the focus of Google. With Fitbit and Google Fit, there has not yet been a uniform course, but they are working (keyword: Health Connect) on corresponding (standardized) interfaces to health and fitness data. In the case of Android 14, Health Connect become an integral part of the operating system. In any case, it sounds logical to integrate the whole thing and makes it easier for inexperienced users to use (a few clicks). It can also be assumed that Health Connect will be a new Project Mainline module in Android 13, which can receive corresponding updates directly via the Play system updates.
Also Root certificates should be updatable with Android 14 via Google Playto protect users from malicious certificates. This has the advantage that these updates are decoupled from the updates from the OEMs and their update speed. Android 14 is also said to be at the Help debunk bloatware. In the first Developer Preview, for example, there is a “Apps installed in the background” menu to list apps that the device manufacturer installed in the background. Also new is an extended memory protection function, which is intended to protect devices with Android 14 from memory errors. A large part of the Android vulnerabilities up to the past year have been in the area of memory security. With Android 14 you therefore support so-called Memory tagging (“extended memory protection”). This is a hardware feature that protects against security errors when saving.
The following small things were also discovered. Fast Pair is back in Android as a new near-mainline module. The multi-user mode now allows further restrictions for the guest profile. There are some innovations and conversions for the battery statistics and the energy saving options. The support for physical keyboards should also be improved with the next Android version.
If you are a bit disappointed when you look at the new features of Android 14, you should know that such a developer preview often only includes a small part of the final feature set of the Android update. Logically, one tends to concentrate more on API and rights issues, which are deeply rooted and the developers should prepare at an early stage. There will be more developer previews and beta versions, as there will certainly be more details and functions in advance.
| # | preview | product | Price | |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 1 |
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Samsung Galaxy A13 SM-A137F, Android smartphone, 6.6 inch Infinity-V TFT… | EUR 189.00 | View at Amazon |
| 2 |
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Motorola moto g22 smartphone (6.5″ HD+ display, 50 MP camera, 4 GB/64 GB, 5000… | 149.99 EUR | View at Amazon |
| 3 |
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Samsung Galaxy A13 Android smartphone, 6.6 inch Infinity-V display, Android 12,… | 162.49 euros | View at Amazon |
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