Google surprised Android enthusiasts today with an unexpected event. The long-rumored Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro were unveiled at this event. These well-received models come with a seven-year Android update guarantee, making them especially appealing to users. However, the biggest surprise of the day wasn’t these devices. Google announced Android 14, the next major release of the Android mobile operating system. Here are the details…

Android 14: The Newest Features for Your Android Smartphones and Other Devices

Every year, Android rolls out an update that seeks to improve, customize, and ensure a better experience for its users. After the success of Android 13 and its many new features, the tech world eagerly anticipated the release of Android 14. And now, the moment has arrived. With a keen focus on customization, control, and enhanced accessibility features, Android 14 is here to redefine the smartphone experience.

This year, the company’s main focus has been on personalization. As you may know, while iOS aims to offer a similar experience to everyone, Google’s Android promises a more personalized experience. This year, a series of Enhanced Personalization tools were added to the mobile operating system to further enhance this experience.

For example, the company is taking its design language called “Material You”, which was introduced with Android 13, to the next level. As it’s known, this feature can automatically adjust app icons, user interface elements, settings, and much more according to the colors of the current wallpaper, following a specific color scheme. With the new update, users can now set custom lock screen shortcuts, allowing quick access to their favorite apps and functions.

In addition, there are customizations for the lock screen and home screen offering templates specifically designed for widgets, colors, fonts, and more. And for the artists among us, Android 14 has a delightful surprise. The new generative AI wallpapers employ AI-generated text-to-image diffusion models, allowing users to craft wallpapers that resonate with their vision. On the other end of the spectrum, for those who have a penchant for minimalistic aesthetics, Android 14 introduces a sophisticated monochromatic theme that swathes the device in beautifully muted colors.

• Customization Picker
• Custom Lock Screen Shortcuts
• Lock Screen Templates
• Generative AI Wallpapers
• Monochromatic Theme

Beyond personalization, the new Android offers impeccable image and video quality. The introduction of Ultra HDR ensures that photos showcase vibrant colors, brighter highlights, and deeper shadows. This feature ensures photos look their absolute best. What’s more, with HDR screens, photos are captured and displayed without compromising the image’s intrinsic quality.

More control over your health, security and data

Health Connect is a new platform that gives users a central way to store and manage their health data from different apps. This makes it easier to track your fitness and wellness progress, and it also gives you more control over who has access to your data. Android 14 also introduces new data sharing updates that give you more visibility into how apps are using your data. For example, you’ll now be notified when an app is sharing your location data with third parties.

More features for low-vision and hard-of-hearing users

Android 14 includes a number of new features that make the platform more accessible to people with low vision and hearing impairments. For example, the improved magnifier is more intuitive to use, and the font size Quick Settings tile makes it easy to change the text size on your device. Android 14 also includes new features for hearing aids, such as a dedicated setup flow and the ability to quickly access hearing aids controls from a shortcut. Additionally, users can now turn on “Flash notifications” to get visual light flashes when they receive incoming notifications.

Get Android 14 today

According to the Google, as of today, Android 14 has been released for Google Pixel devices with its stable version. Later this year, it will also be available for manufacturers such as Samsung, iQOO, Nothing, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Sony, Tecno, Vivo, and Xiaomi.

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(source)

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The Google app on Android has received a new feature that allows users to conveniently erase the last 15 minutes of search history.

Google spokesman, Ned Adriance, said in a statement to The Verge that the feature will be rolled out to everyone using the app in the coming weeks. He also revealed that Google was exploring pushing the feature to other platforms.

To try out the new feature, open up the Google app, tap on the profile picture icon on the top right corner of the screen, and then tap on ‘Delete last 15 minutes’ within the menu that appears.

The ‘Delete last 15 minutes’ feature sure has taken its time to arrive on Android. First announced back in May last year, it was rolled out to the Google app on iOS only a couple of months later, but gave a miss to Android for some reason.

At Google I/O 2021, Google announced it'd roll out an option to delete the last 15 minutes of your search history. This rolled out on iOS in July 2021 but was said to come to Android later. Well, it appears to now be rolling out!

Thanks to @panduu221 for the tip! pic.twitter.com/gdtAa1pIFo

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) March 18, 2022

Google already allows automatic search history deletion for periods of 3 months, 18 months, or 36 months, and also presents an option to remove particular search queries from the history. But the new feature allows users to delete history from a much shorter session, which is new.

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We reported on the Google Pixel Feature Drop earlier this year, which brought the “Locked Folder” functionality within the Google Photos app to Pixel devices. The search giant announced in October that the Locked Folder on Google Photos would be made available to more Android and iOS devices by the end of the year. Now, the feature sees its initial rollout to some Android devices.

According to a report by Androidpolice, the feature has arrived on some of their Android phones while still missing from other devices. The function is expected to be made available to a broader userbase soon via a server-side update.

Google Photos app Locked Folder update

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If you have never heard about the Locked Folder feature of the Google Photos app or are unclear about its functionality, let us clear your doubts and queries.

As we know, the Google Photos app enables its users to backup their photos on the Google Drive cloud storage, but with the Locked Folder feature, you can prevent the pictures and videos of your choosing from getting uploaded on the drive. In addition to that, these media files are hidden locally on the user’s phone and are protected by biometrics, similar to other vault/locker software on the market. The media that get moved to the Locked Folder doesn’t show up in any other part of the Google Photos app.

The feature offers another layer of privacy and security as you can ‘only view’ whatever you stored, and won’t be allowed to share, screenshot, or screen record any of the content unless it’s removed back out of the Locked Folder. If you have received the update, the feature can be accessed by opening Google Photos and tapping on the “Library” tab, then on “Utilities” and scrolling down to “Locked Folder,” where you will be directed to set up the Locked Folder. Once that is done, you can move any media you like to this secure folder by swiping up after opening the file and choosing “Move to Locked Folder.”

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In case you were wondering how much Google makes from Android, here’s some idea. Thanks to an Oracle lawyer, we now know that Google has made $31 billion USD in revenue from its Android Operating System. From this, the company earned a profit of around $22 billion. So, this means the company’s profit margin for Android is nearly 70%!

Google does not reveal financial information about Android separately. So the company is not happy with the Oracle Lawyer revealing such sensitive information. It further states that the lawyer got this information from confidential internal financial documents which were never meant to be made public.

The two major sources of the company’s profits from Android come via advertisements on phones and Google Play store. So, it looks like the company is making a lot of money from its Android business.

However, if you consider that Android was launched way back in 2008, i.e. nearly eight years back, this figure is not that surprising. Apple generates this amount in iPhone sales in just a quarter. But the margin is what’s interesting here, as even Apple (although not directly comparable to Android) enjoys only around 40% margin on its iPhones.

So, what do you think about these figures for Android? Are you surprised?

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Google has presented a preview of the next generation Android software at its I/O developer conference. It has been described by Google’s Engineering Director Dave Burke as “the biggest release in the history of Android”. The interface has been given a new look, with the result being something Google are referring to as Material Design. The interface has been designed to give the impression of depth as well as colour and has been designed to work across all devices, not just Chrome and Android, giving users a smooth transition between products and a complete experience.

The use of “nest scrolling”, which sees items shrink and disappear, and the use of light and shadows are what helps to create the impression of depth and the digital material is said to expand and reform according to your instincts about how to move items and what items can be moved. There are a lot of new features to look forward to also:

• Notifications will now be accessible from the lockscreen, and the notifications themselves will be organised according to what the user is most likely to want to see.
• The authentication process is now more intelligent; the software will first attempt to find out if you’re in a known environment or if you are holding it from nearby devices or the smartwatch on your wrist. If your device isn’t persuaded by your surroundings, it will ask you for a PIN.
• The keyboard UI interface has been overhauled and a “do not disturb” feature has been added.

The performance is being enhanced also, by the Android Extension Pack providing better graphics and there are new battery saving measures, which provide extensive statistics about battery use and a power-saving mode.

It all sounds very exciting, let’s hope the practice can meet the expectations.

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Due to the Sandy Hurricane yesterday, Google temporary cancellation of the planned Android conference in Beijing on the 30th morning, but unable to convene the conference, but did not prevent the release of the new Google product.

Google today released a new Android 4.2 operating system via online as well as entirely new generation Nexus series phones and LG Nexus smaretphone. There is small change to support new features of Google released Android 4.2 system.

Android 4.2 continue to adopt the name of the Jelly Bean, and support for tablet and mobile devices. The Android 4.2 has Android 4.1 overal aspect consistent and improved in some details, the new features include:

• Shooting panoramic photos
• Keyboard support sliding input
• Quickly set up account
• Gmail support text zoom
• Increase accessibility features: finger zooming, panning the main screen, increase the output of voice and gesture mode navigation designed for blind users
• Miracast support wireless display sharing
• Google Now View Gmail, flight information, suggesting important activities.

Interestingly, Google has added Apple iOS6 system to the panoramic camera feature, since many users use a very high frequency photographed, so the Android system update, which added a panoramic camera is also very necessary.

Phone input interface: users can continuously sliding keyboard, the phone will be identified according to the sliding track input text, this input will increase input speed, of course, may use this feature for the first time in the input accuracy relatively poor, there will be more good input experience familiar.

Notice in the phone’s interface, the user can quickly jump to the settings interface can also switch to a different phone usage patterns in the notification interface. The original switch accounts must be completed to set unlock interface, you can quickly switch between different accounts.

Miracast function games or video phone by wireless screen projection to a compatible TV, sharing becomes more simple.

The upgraded Google Now can greatly reduce the frequency of use of the mobile phone calendar function, because before the advent of the important dates, it will prompt you  with right information.

The Android 4.2 system overall improvement is not obvious, but these new features are more practical, the system will be built directly in Nexus 4 and Nexus 10, within the next few weeks, GALAXY Nexus and Nexus 7 will receive prompt for upgrade, As for the the system upgrades date for other Android devices can not be determined yet.

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