Last night Google released the Third Beta of Android 14 for compatible devices, namely its smartphones Pixel 4a (also 5G), Pixel 5 and 5a, Pixel 6, 6a and 6 Pro, Pixel 7, 7 Pro and, for the first time, also the Pixel 7a. We are now at a good point in the development of the new OS version: as expected, the company has announced the achievement of the so-called Platform Stability, which means that all APIs and all interactions with apps are finalized and no longer change.
Probably between now and the release of the stable code, scheduled for this fall, the Mountain View giant will distribute three more builds, but will focus more on refining the user experience, optimizing performance and fixing bugs. In short, this could be the last somewhat substantial changelog, even if we are already at the minimum terms – so far only a handful of news have emerged worthy of being reported; that said, it is not impossible that other details will emerge in the next few hours/days. We will not fail to inform you, in case.
ANDROID 14 BETA 3: MAIN NEWS
- New reload indicator. When the phone is connected to a power supply or other device capable of supplying energy, a pill-shaped “chip” will appear in the upper right corner (similar to the one shown during a phone call) which indicates more clearly that the charging is in progress. In addition to the charging battery icon, the current charge percentage is indicated alongside.
- New colors for app icons. When using versions coordinated with the device’s Material theme, the background color and accent color are “closer” to each other. Variants are foreseen for the light theme and for the dark theme (respectively, light background/dark accent and vice versa).
- More rounded corners in the buttons of the screenshots.
- Customize Lock Screen: ability to edit clock/date/weather widgets and shortcuts.
- New tutorial for gesture navigation.
ANDROID 14 BETA 3: MAIN BUG FIXES
- Fixed issues that prevented Wi-Fi calling from being enabled for some devices and carriers. (Bug #277964472)
- Fixed an issue with Direct My Call technology. (Bug #278252154)
- Fixed system issues that caused excessive power consumption in some cases.
- Fixed system stability issues that in some cases caused UI hangs.
- Fixed an issue that caused the Settings app to crash when choosing a new wallpaper.
- Fixed an issue with System UI that could crash the GPU, causing “Application Not Responding” (ANR) errors.
- Fixed an issue that under some circumstances could cause a device’s GPS to be disabled until the next reboot.
- Fixed IP Multimedia Subsystem (IMS) issues that could block Wi-Fi calling in some cases.
- Fixed a blank screen when choosing the “Message” command for a recent call in the Google Phone app.
- Fixed an issue where while 3-button navigation was enabled for a device, activating Google Maps Picture-in-Picture mode would cause the PiP window to disappear.
- Fixed an issue where locking and unlocking the screen while playing a video in the Google TV app could crash the device.
- Fixed an issue with Android Auto where some users may be prompted to redo Bluetooth pairing.
- Fixed various issues in Health Connect, including:
- An issue where the system back button would stop working if the Health Connect integration was in progress.
- An issue where the Route Permissions screen would sometimes freeze.
- An issue where it was sometimes not possible to access Health Connect in the system settings.
- An issue where the Health Connect data category page was missing some permission types when a filter was applied.
ANDROID 14 BETA 3: KNOWN ISSUES
- Instability in apps that use Credential Manager APIs. A fix is available in the latest Android 14 SDK preview release on Android Studio. Developers who have an older version should completely uninstall it and then reinstall the SDK.
- A problem with System UI sometimes causes the screen to flicker when playing a video or viewing an app in picture-in-picture mode.
- In some cases, video playback continues in the background even after an app is closed if the video was picture-in-picture.
- Picture-in-picture video playback stops if you perform the Back gesture in the PiP settings pages.
- Android System Intelligence service crashes sporadic.
- When using a work profile, the Google Play Store app freezes or crashes on launch.
ANDROID 14 BETA 3: OTA/FACTORY IMAGE DOWNLOAD
As always, for devices registered in the Beta circuit, the update should automatically appear over the next few hours, but if for some reason you need the official images, here are the download links:
- Pixel 7a: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 7 Pro: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 7: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 6a: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 6 Pro: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 6: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 5a: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 5: Factory | OTA
- Pixel 4a 5G: Factory | OTA
THE FIRST BETA OF ANDROID TV 14 IS ALSO HERE
Another interesting news is the arrival of the first beta of Android TV 14. Yes, 14: Google seems to have decided to “skip” Android 13 and more or less catch up on the development of the variant of the operating system dedicated to televisions. To be more precise, Google had announced Android TV 13 a few months ago, but had only made it available to its latest generation dev kits, and so far it has never officially arrived on devices on the market; the company confirms that this version of the OS has been “retired” – technically it remains available in Android Studio, but is relegated to a menu dedicated to “not recommended” builds.
As regards the novelty, at the moment they are quite a mystery. Google announced the build rather quietly, without explicit changelogs; by the way, usually the test images for ATV are available both on the dev kits and in the integrated emulator of the Android Studio development environment, but for now this last option is not active. In short, if you don’t have a dev kit, there’s no way to browse around in search of news.
