Today Google released the first beta version of Android 14, following two developer previews in February and March. This means you can now easily test upcoming software even if you’re not a developer, simply by registering your compatible Pixel device on the Android Beta website.
Once you’ve done that, Android 14 Beta 1 will arrive as an over-the-air update. Note that if you are already enrolled in the Android 13 QPR Beta program with a device that also supports Android 14, you will automatically receive the update to Android 14 Beta 1 without any action. Also keep in mind that this is a beta, and as such bugs and issues are inevitable.
This beta will be followed by another in May, according to Google’s release timeline. Then, starting in June, there will be two Platform Stability releases (don’t call them Release Candidates, but think of them that way).
In Android 14, the gesture navigation experience includes a prominent back arrow when interacting with apps to improve the understanding and usefulness of back gestures, Google says. This arrow also complements your background or device theme.
Applications can add custom actions to the system allocation sheets they call, and the system itself uses more application signals to determine the order of direct allocation targets. Hopefully this means that direct stock targets will be more hit than miss in the future.
Android 14 improves on the per-app language preferences, which were introduced in Android 13, allowing dynamic customization of the set of languages displayed in the list of languages per app. The keyboards will also know the user interface language of the current app, presumably so they can base some automatic input language switching on that if they want to.
Finally, accessibility services will not have visibility of certain views unless they claim to help users with disabilities (and these claims will be checked by Google Play Protect for apps in the Play Store).
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