A new Android upgrade is on the horizon as Google initiates the rollout of Android 14, contributing to the ongoing enhancement of your Android phone.
Android 14 is brimming with updates that enable you to personalize your device experience, gain more control over your health and safety, and enhance accessibility features. This operating system upgrade has commenced its release for supported Pixel devices today and will become available on more of your beloved devices from leading brands such as Samsung Galaxy, iQOO, Nothing, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Sony, Tecno, vivo, and Xiaomi later this year.
Here’s a sneak peek at what Android 14 has in store for its enthusiastic user base:
- More ways to express yourself: Android 14’s updated customization picker makes it easier to switch between wallpapers and update what you want to see at a glance. You can now set custom lock screen shortcuts, like the QR reader or the Google Home app, so you have quick, one-tap access to your most used controls directly from your Android lock screen.
Choose from a set of new, curated lock screen templates for fonts, widgets, colors and formats that best match your style. These options also use AI to adjust your screen based on your situation. For example, if the weather is suddenly taking a turn for the worse, your lock screen weather widget will become more prominent.
If you prefer a less colorful phone aesthetic that is easy on the eyes, Android 14 also includes a monochromatic theme that looks sleek and beautiful across your entire device.- Make the wallpapers you’ve always imagined with AI: Android 14 also lets you show off your most creative and artistic self — no art skills required. Generative AI wallpapers use AI-generated text-to-image diffusion models to help you create wallpapers that match your vision. You can choose from pre-set suggestions to create never-before-seen wallpapers in just a few taps.
- Even better camera quality: Android is also helping to improve your photo and camera quality. Building on Android 13’s support for high dynamic range (HDR) video, Android 14 supports HDR images with Ultra HDR. Ultra HDR helps your photos look their best by bringing out vibrant colors, brighter highlights, and darker shadows. Plus, thanks to the great HDR screens available on many of today’s phones, Ultra HDR takes and displays high-definition photos without altering the original quality of the image.
- More control over your health, security, and data: Apps help people track their fitness, health and wellness levels. But the data that’s collected is often isolated within each particular app, limiting your visibility and control over your data. Health Connect is now built into your Android 14 settings as a central way to store all your data in one place and stay in control of your privacy. And your data is securely encrypted on your phone, which ensures Google or anyone else can’t see or use it for any other purpose. Just connect and sync your favorite health and fitness apps to get started.
You’ll also have more visibility into how your data is being used by apps that request access to it. With new data-sharing updates on Android 14, when you’re asked to grant apps permission to information like your location you’ll be notified when an app is sharing location data with third parties and can make a more informed decision on whether or not to grant access.
Digital protection on Android 14 also extends to your most sensitive information: your device’s personal identification numbers (PIN). Android 14 enhances PIN security by encouraging you to set a six-digit PIN. After typing in the correct 6-digit or longer PIN, you won’t need to hit enter anymore as your device will automatically unlock.- Better accessibility features for low-vision users: Android 14 comes with many vision-and hearing-inclusive features. For low-vision users, the improved magnifier on Android 14 is more intuitive, with the ability to pinch to zoom in and out from 100%. You can also change the magnifier size in a new Magnifier Settings panel or customize how much of the screen you’d like magnified. And to prevent your magnifier from turning off when you go from app to app, you can set your magnification to “Keep on when switching apps” in Android’s accessibility settings.
Also, you can improve readability and quickly change the font size of the text on your device with Android 14’s font size Quick Settings tile and enjoy better readability with nonlinear font scaling, which enlarges larger font size at a slower rate than smaller font size. This prevents text that is already large enough from getting bigger than necessary — that way you can read your screen without text getting cut off, text wrapping to multiple lines or text breaking the page layout.- Improved hearing accessibility for hearing-impaired users: We’ve also updated our approach to hearing accessibility. Android 14 has more intuitive ways to connect and interact with your hearing aids, such as a dedicated hearing-aid setup flow from Accessibility settings, an easy way to route audio to different outputs and the ability to quickly access hearing aids controls from a shortcut.
- The introduction of flash notifications: Similarly, notification sounds, rings or alerts aren’t effective to all our users all the time. On Android 14, you can turn on “Flash notifications” from the Accessibility and Notifications settings and get visual light flashes when you have incoming notifications.
- Even more quality-of-life improvements: On top of all of these, Android 14 is packed with many other exciting features like automatic framing in video calls, one-tap access to your Google Home controls, performance improvements and more.
Android 14 comes with a plethora of thrilling features, including automatic framing in video calls, convenient one-tap access to your Google Home controls, performance enhancements, and much more. For a comprehensive look at the latest release, you can delve into the details at android.com/14.
