Google has today rolled out the first Android 14 developer preview, making it available for download immediately.
In a similar fashion to the path taken with Android 13, Android 14 will go through a series of developer previews before reaching beta in April, platform stability in early June and reaching production-ready status sometime in late July or early August.
While Google is no doubt keeping some features up its sleeve for Google I/O or announcement later this year, for developers there’s a number of important changes that you need to be aware of. They include:
- Changes to the declaration of services, including limiting the types of services that can be permitted
- Context-registered broadcasts have some minor changes when an app is cached
- A new SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM permission for setting exact alarms
- Requirement to declare if receivers are exported or unexported
- Changes for apps using dynamic code loading
- Apps with a targetSdkVersion lower than 23 can no longer be installed to protect against malware
- Credential manager and passkeys support
- OpenJDK 17 support
In addition, users will be able to increase their font size up to 200%. Currently Pixel devices allow customers to enlarge their fonts by 130% – so developers will want to test to ensure screens are still functional at the larger font size.
“Android 14 continues our work to improve your productivity as developers, along with enhancements to performance, privacy, security, and user customization,” Dave Burke, VP of Engineering wrote. “This preview is just the beginning, and we’ll have lots more to share as we move through the release cycle.”
The Android 14 SDK can now be installed in preview builds of Android Studio Giraffe. You can also flash Pixel devices with Android 14, but keep in mind you may need to use developer support images to downgrade.
