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Google released the second beta for Android 14 QPR2 earlier today, giving users a preview of the next quarterly update that will roll out to Pixel users in March of 2024. issue will be Android 15 in 2024. Android 14 QPR2 is no different, and while digging into the second beta, I found many new features such as a circle to find pockets, social media, and more.
Before I jump in, here are links to existing articles I wrote for Android Police that go into detail about the more important changes I found in Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2.
It’s not just the changes, of course. Here’s a breakdown of some of the changes I’ve found.
Android will allow you to delete data from malicious content
Have you been overwhelmed with information from one app? If so, you may want to enable Android’s “Notification cooldown” feature when logging out. This part, which will be found below Settings → Notifications, “gradually reduce(s) the amount of information when you receive a lot of information in a row from the same app.” You will have the option to use the ad blocker in all comments or only in conversations. You will also have the option to stop your phone from vibrating until the screen is unlocked. This way, your phone won’t vibrate when an app or contact posts your information.
Data recovery on Android
Android is ready to let you draw a circle to find your screen
Google Lens makes it easy to search your screen. Just call up Google Assistant on any screen and tap the “search your screen” button that appears. This provides a snapshot of the current app in Lens for analysis, and you can tap on any text or a picture he knows to see relevant search results or perform various actions. Many people may not know that they can do this, however, which is why Google seems to be adding an eye search feature.
I was able to reveal a hidden action “Circle to Search” in Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2. The description for this action says that you can “Touch and hold the home button at the bottom of the screen , then circle or mark anything to find”. This button is for the 3-button navigation bar, but there is a similar button for shopping bags.
The new Android icon “Circle to Search”.
This “circle to explore” icon may be intended to initiate a specific search through the new Help and Bard service, but since it is not From that point on, I can’t say for sure.
Google is finally getting ready to improve Android’s awesome map feature
Android’s user interface is great for many different situations, but one feature that isn’t the best is mapping on phones. If you’ve ever held your phone in landscape mode and tried to open or view your data, you know what I mean. But Google is finally working on smoothing the landscape for phones. With Android 14 QPR1, Google started optimize the lock screen for the map on phones, and in Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2, Google has now started to optimize the pull-down information.
Left: Sequence of current map data. Right: New version of map data.
After enabling a hidden flag, the dropdown display used a split layout similar to the layout on the slabs and folds. There are four similar Control Panels arranged in a 2×2 grid instead of the previous 4×1 grid. In addition, the brightness is now always visible in this setting, but the first time you have to pull it down to show it. Shortcuts to open the Settings app and the power menu are also always visible. Information is displayed to the right instead of in the middle and makes good use of the available space.
Overall, I think this layout is better than it is now. I hope this goes to Android 14 QPR2, but we can also see this change in Android 15.
Android is adding built-in support for content backup
At the beginning of this year, the Google Play Store launched a new storage feature that allows you to free up space by replacing the app’s standard installation files with a smaller “stub” version. The “stub” version of the app has no branding or assets, it’s very minimal. In addition, the app’s data is retained when the app is saved, which means you don’t need to sign in or change any settings after you save the app.
Google Play’s app archive feature makes good use of Android’s support for installing apps, but one problem is that it’s not integrated into the OS itself. This means that you cannot store an app from the OS’s settings, since it is part of the Google Play Store app itself. In theory, any The Android app store can do something similar, but users can only download content from that store and not from the OS’s Settings app.
Android 15, however, can bring native support for data storage. It appears in the Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2 release, which added new PackageManager commands that allow you to save and save a specific application package. Archiving an app via the ‘pm archive’ shell command is completely removed from the background, but it will likely be updated in future releases to retain the app icon so that the user later chooses to remove it.
New Android commands to save shell commands
According to the use of unarchiving, the system will send a request to the app “installer of record” (usually the app store where the user installed the app) to remove the app. The app store in question will need to be able to handle the android.intent.action.UNARCHIVE_PACKAGE intent as the Google Play Store currently can.
Hopefully, Google will add a button in the Settings app to allow you to save data instead of uninstalling an app, because there is a lot of apps I use infrequently but want to keep because they’re really cool when I need to use them.
Android will let you customize how apps contact you
Android 14 introduced many new features, such as the Grammatical Inflection API that allows apps to better handle special languages such as French and German. How does a developer know if a user prefers gender-neutral, gender-neutral, or gender-neutral addresses? By asking them in the settings section of their app.
Instead of making each request ask the user what address terms to use, Android will add a new page of ” Address settings” allows the user to set their preferred computer address settings. Apps can adjust their strings accordingly. This page “Conditions of the address” may be added to the “Regional preferences” added by Android 14 for other local units such as temperature and the first day of the week.
Android configuration page for “Address conditions”
This page is not currently visible in the latest Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2 release, but a similar option to set the grammar can be found below. Settings → System → Configuration options.
Android will make it easy to control your keyboard app’s audio feedback
Most keyboard apps on Android allow you to control their audio responses, but you have to go to the app’s settings page to do so. Android is about to add a “Keyboard vibration” button below Settings → Sound and vibration → Vibration & haptics to disable haptics in your keyboard app. This isn’t a huge change by any means, but it makes the “Vibration & haptics” page more intuitive.
Android keyboard-wide vibration interaction.
That’s all I got from a few hours of digging in Android 14 QPR2 Beta 2. If you find something we missed, send us a comment!