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Surprise! Android 14 is here!
Google released the first Android 14 Developer Preview on the world this morning in celebration of LeBron breaking the NBA scoring record. Actually, this has nothing to do with that bundle of greatness from last night, but shoutout LeBron on breaking a record no one thought would ever be broken.
As for Android 14, the Developer Preview 1 is now available for the Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 6a, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, and Pixel 4a (5G). Since this is the first Developer Preview, I can’t recommend that any of you flash it yet and instead let developers take a look, as well as fools like us who can’t help ourselves. The chances of this being stable enough for your daily phone are not high. Things could very well be broken.
As for what’s new in Android 14, we’ll be diving in this very minute while working on a separate write-up on anything we find. We will likely update this post a bit once we have some of the goods for you. Stay tuned for that fun.
For now, Google has said that Android 14 will continue to improve productivity for developers and provide “enhancements to performance, privacy, security, and user customization.” They also said that this new Android 14 build will continue the work from Android 12L and Android 13 that supports larger screens like tablets and foldables, both of which we think Google has just around the corner.
Expect Android 14 to further “optimize the way apps work together, improve system health and battery life, and polish the end-user experience.” Things like stricter rules around foreground services running will be a part of this to help resource consumption and improve battery life. Google is making a bunch of optimizations to the internal broadcast system that will also improve battery life and responsiveness. They are even improving font scaling and blocking app installs with a target SDK version lower than 23.
More coming as we find it.
Android 14 Release Schedule
Wanting the Android 14 Beta? You will have to give Google a couple of Developer Previews and then the Android Beta Program will open, probably in April, if we go by the first schedule they’ve shared (above). It looks like we’ll get two Developer Previews and at least 4 Beta builds before a stable release sometime after July.
The first build of Android 14 is:
Release date: February 8, 2023
Build: UPP1.230113.009
Emulator support: x86 (64-bit), ARM (v8-A)
Security patch level: February 2023
Google Play services: 23.03.13
Downloads: Factory Images | OTA Files
For now, again, this is developer-only stuff and requires manual work to get running. Most of you shouldn’t take it on. Google specifically says as much in today’s announcement post, so listen to them.
Android 14!
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