It’s true that Android 14 didn’t have the kind of presence we’ve seen in previous years at the Google I/O 2023 launch event. It is understandable, since Google decided to focus on artificial intelligence, devoting more than an hour and a half to the event lasting just over two hours, and of course a few minutes to review the news related to the devices, the Google Pixel 7a, the expected Google Pixel Fold and the very interesting Pixel Tablet . It was, as we expected, one of the most interesting Google I/O in recent years, but so many new features pushed Android 14 a bit out of the limelight.

Just because he didn’t appear in the spotlight doesn’t mean he wasn’t present. After all, although its media interest has a huge reach, Google I/O is an event for developers and a large part of developers interested in the Google ecosystem develops of course for Android, to what we expected, and we have not been mistaken, news related to it. The news, which is summarized as follows: Android 14 Beta 2.

Let’s recall that the developer previews of Android 14 began to see the light of day in February, while Beta 1 debuted last April, so we already had the opportunity to see the first news that will come from this operating system. And now, with this new revision, which is now available to all interested users who have compatible deviceswe see the list of new features grow substantially.

But before we get into that, a very interesting aspect of the new features is that, as we’ve seen before in other releases, Android 14 Beta 2 will not be exclusive to Pixel smartphones. On the contrary, as we can see on this page, In addition to the Google Pixel itself, Beta 2 is also available for devices from iQOO, Lenovo, Nothing, OnePlus, OPPO, realme, TECNO, vivo and Xiaomi, Transparent. Undoubtedly, Google has significantly expanded the scope of this phase of the testing process.

Android 14 Beta 2: what’s new

The photography section is one of the strong points of Android, especially for Google in the case of Pixels, but also for many other manufacturers who choose to mount incredibly advanced cameras. So in this new beta version of Android 14 we find a very interesting feature which is 10-bit HDR and Ultra HDR support. Also, also upgrade your camera extensionso applications can handle longer render times, resulting in improved images using computationally intensive algorithms such as low-light photography on compatible devices, as well as improving support for direct on-sensor zooming.

Android 14 Beta 2 also improves the audio playback experience through wired headphones will offer lossless audio via USB for the first time. The adoption of lossless formats is already quite widespread in streaming music services as well as in digital music stores, so this news will undoubtedly be very well received by all users who appreciate this sound quality and prefer wired headphones, because according to what you can read on the developer’s blog for Android, Google is already working with our OEM partners to enable this feature on devices later this year.

Health Connect, a repository of health information, now becomes part of the operating system itself. Its installation will therefore take place directly with the operating system, and its updates will no longer be managed separately via Google Play, but in those of Android. This translates into a very interesting new feature in the first place, and that is that its privacy controls integrate with system controls to provide more unified and centralized control, which is key considering the type of information it manages application.

In addition, Health Connect is starting to be tested in this beta version training route support, which allows users to view, review and share their map views. A route is defined as a list of saved locations over a period of time, and your app can insert routes into workouts and link them together. To give users complete control over this sensitive data, only individual paths can be shared and it will be through other applications.

This is just the beginning of Android Health. Hand in hand with Android 14 and Wear OS 4 arriving at the end of the yearGoogle has expanded the Health Connect API functionality to expand the ecosystem of developers who want the data collected and managed by their apps, services and devices to be integrated into the Google app. This is something that Apple has honed quite well in iOS with Health, and which will thankfully find a replica in Android.

Another new feature that debuts in Android 14 Beta 2 will be especially welcomed by users who value their privacy and, therefore, its management, which their device offers them. Users will now see the new section in the displayed dialog box when an app accesses a device’s geolocation, showing whether it will share that information with third parties. Because, of course, it is not the same for an application to use said data locally, upload it to the cloud or share it with third parties. Thanks to this expansion of the information provided, users will be able to make more informed decisions.

In addition, Android will also issue a notification if any time one of its apps is modifying the way it uses data to start sharing it with third partiesthus preventing a policy change in this regard from going unnoticed (which is quite common these days), allowing us to roll back the permissions granted if we don’t want our data to be shared.

Another usability and security measure that may seem trivial at first, but is more important than it seems, is that from Android 14 Beta 2, Google’s operating system it also imposes very strict restrictions on full screen mode. As the company notes, Android 11 made it possible for any app to use full-screen mode when the phone is locked.

However, experience has shown that there are very few and easily defined cases where it makes sense to use this mode, and in many cases it can be used with malicious intent. To avoid this problem, Google decided from now on Full-screen mode with phone locked will only be available for apps that offer calling and video calling features, as well as user-configured alarms. It is important to clarify that, yes, this restriction will be imposed on apps installed on the system once it is updated to Android 14, but that previously installed apps will retain the ability to use this notification mode.

Finally, among the most important news that comes with this beta version we find a significant improvement in terms of predictive gesture navigation. In particular, we found that the back gesture becomes more fluid in terms of its effect on the screen, as well as more intuitive, reducing the learning curve of using this navigation system.

For the rest, and as we might have expected, Android 14 Beta 2 fixes a nice collection of bugs, mainly minors, present in the beta version launched last month. This, and this is important, should remind us again that we are still in the development stage, where Google adds new features without focusing on the performance and stability of the system. It will be from the beginning of June that more efforts will be focused on these points. Therefore, we recommend that if you want to try Android 14 Beta 2, do it on a device that you do not depend on in your daily life, because the probability of failure is much higher than recommended for our device to use. common