A sneak peek at upcoming Android 14 features
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Google offers sneak peek at upcoming Android 14 features
Google offered a sneak peek at some new features of the upcoming Android 14 at the I/O Conference 2023.
Android 14 adds support for 10-bit high dynamic range (HDR) images. The Ultra HDR format is fully backwards compatible with JPEG. Night Mode and 10-bit HDR video are also supported in social apps such as Instagram.
There are upgrades to Camera Extensions, which allow apps to handle longer processing times, enabling improved images using compute-intensive algorithms like low-light photography. Supported devices can also tap to focus and zoom during Extension usage.
Lossless USB audio is also supported in Android 14 and Google is working with OEM partners to enable this feature in devices later this year.
To give users more control and visibility over their data and how it's shared, Google introduced Health Connect, an on-device repository for user health and fitness data. This allows users to share data between their favourite apps with a single place to control what data they want to share with these apps.
For Messages by Google, there is a new feature, Magic Compose, that's powered by generative AI. It offers suggested responses based on the context of the messages and even 'magically' transforms what you write into different styles.
For the lock screen, users can customise it with new shortcuts and beautifully crafted clocks. There is also a new monochrome colour theme that can be applied across the entire phone interface.
Arriving first on Pixel devices next month, emoji wallpapers can be created with different emoji combinations, patterns and colours. Cinematic wallpaper, using on-device machine learning networks, can transform your favourite photos to 3D images.
Currently, Google has released Beta 2 for developers to try these Android 14 features, test their apps and provide feedback. We expect Android 14 to be prime time and ready when Google's yet-to-be-announced Pixel 8 hits stores later this year.
