Second Developer Preview for Android 14 Drops

Last month, Google released an initial preview of the upcoming Android 14. Today, they’ve released the second installment. And it’s everything you’d expect.

Android 14 is already gaining a reputation for enhanced privacy and it hasn’t even launched. However, don’t expect any secrets when it comes to what’s on tap with 14 (sorry, we had to), because the second developer preview puts it all on display.

The consumer side of Android 14 will come following the developer portion, which is normal in Google land.

There’s a number of pertinent privacy features on the way. The first notable one will be that the Android photo picker will ask you if you’re cool with the app accessing all your photos, or if you prefer to select specific photos. We’ve come to expect that with apps these days, so it’s certainly not groundbreaking. However, the fact that it’s a Google service asking permission on behalf of a Google app is somewhat interesting.

Screenshot detection is coming which should help filter down access to data.

By way of Jetpack Library, Android 14 will utilize a credential manager.

Now, enough about all that boring developer jargon. How about the consumers?

Well, on the consumer-facing aspect, Google will allow for more settings customizations. For example, prefer your temperature in Celsius? Want a different first day of the week?

For now, the core mission is to get developers to start understanding what’s needed for their apps to remain fully-compatible with a new incoming operating system; hence, the developer previews.

Google’s Android 14 likely releases towards the end of spring, or shortly following.

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