Google announced the Ultra HDR feature as one of the new functions available in Android 14, which will be released in August. According to the company, compatible apps on devices running Android 14 will be able to show photographs with a wider range of colors and brightness.
This support technology to run Ultra HDR is already found in top Android phones. According to Forbes, it will be supported by the Google Photos app.
Since Adobe is making it easy for them, most big name apps will likely include Ultra HDR support. The technology works by adding a extra layer of information called Gain Map to a standard jpeg image.
According to Adobe, “Images optimized for High Dynamic Range (HDR) screens have brighter highlights and more detailed shadows, resulting in a greater sense of realism and greater impact.” The Gain Map “combines standard dynamic range (SDR) and HDR renderings into a single image and interpolates between the two dynamically at display time.”
Google advises app developers on the Android Developers Blog that “The framework renders these images in the UI in HDR automatically when your app chooses to use the HDR UI for its activity window.”
For the next beta program update, the expectation is that testers will contact platform stability. This means that the Internal and external APIs have been finalized and the app-facing behavior has also been finalized.
