Google has given developers access to the first preliminary version of the upcoming mobile operating system Android 14 Preview 1. As a rule, Google keeps the final set of new OS features secret until at least the I/O conference. However, some new features and capabilities are still available in Android 14 Preview 1, and you can talk about them.
Previous rumors that Android 14 will block the installation of old apps have been confirmed. As the OS evolved, new APIs and increased security, privacy, or background processing restrictions appeared. They can break old programs. To avoid this, Android has a backward compatibility system that keeps these old apps running and doesn’t apply some new features and restrictions to them. This can be used by unscrupulous developers to create applications with the ability to bypass OS restrictions. In Android 14, this loophole will be closed. The operating system will block the installation of apps designed for Android 6.0 or lower. This version introduces a permissions system, and many malware use the target version of Android 5.1 to bypass it.
Most users probably won’t even notice these new restrictions. The fact is that since 2018, the Play Store has been operating a system of minimum target SDK levels. It requires new and updated apps to target a version of Android released a year ago or newer. As such, all new and updated apps must now target Android 12 and up. Older apps that haven’t been updated in a while may still target older OS versions. But later they will gradually disappear from the Play Store. Since last year, Google has started hiding old apps. Now any app that hasn’t been updated in two years will be hidden from the store.
It also looks like the base Android OS will drop support for older apps every year as well. Google has provided an opportunity to bypass the blocking if you want to install an application for Android 6.0 on Android 14. This requires a USB cable, a PC, and the Android Developer SDK installed. You can install the old program using the ADB command line flag – “adb install -bypass-low-target-sdk-block FILENAME.apk”. However, taking into account the requirements, this will be able to be done only by quite knowledgeable users, and not by ordinary consumers.
Another new feature is “non-linear font scaling”. The idea is that a small font will scale more noticeably than a large font. Previously, linear scaling made all fonts equally large, including large ones. At the same time, Google is increasing the font size limit from 130% to 200%.
Also, Google implemented changes related to “optimization of background work”, although there are no details about this yet. Additionally, Android is being updated to OpenJDK 17, and Google says it’s “carefully working to fully enable Java 17 language features in future developer previews.”
Android 14 Preview 1 builds are available on the Android Developer site for Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 6a, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, or Pixel 4a (5G) smartphones.
Source: arstechnica
