Gemini Nano won't be coming to the Pixel 8 because of "some hardware limitations" but will be coming to more high-end devices in the near future according to Terence Zhang, a Developer Relations engineer at Google, during #TheAndroidShow.

The Pixel 8 and Pixel 8 Pro have the same chipset (Tensor G3) but different amounts of memory (8GB versus 12GB). However, Gemini Nano is available on the Galaxy S24 series, which starts with 8GB of RAM. There may be some other hardware differences between the Pixel 8 and 8 Pro that we don't know of that are holding back Gemini Nano support.

You'll soon be able to minimize Chrome Custom Tabs so you can interact with an underlying app without fully closing out your browser tab!

Google says this is enabled by default for Custom Tabs starting with Chrome 122 Beta.

Android is preparing to add a built-in settings screen for satellite messaging 👀

This screen has a link to an unpublished T-Mobile page for satellite messaging. T-Mobile is working with Starlink to enable this feature on existing phones.

Full details are available in my latest article for Android Authority.

Under Settings > Security & privacy > More security & privacy in Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2, there's a new "allow camera software extensions" toggle that's enabled by default.

This toggle "enables the default software implementation of advanced camera features, such as Eyes Free videography."

This feature basically lets the Android OS provide some fallback Camera2/CameraX vendor extensions in cases where the OEMs don't provide their own.

I first reported back in January that Google was working on bringing back widgets to the lock screen. I believed at the time that this feature was intended for devices like the Pixel Tablet, and Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2 lends credence to that theory.

While digging through the latest beta, I discovered that there's going to be a new "glanceable hub" toggle under "Hub Mode" settings. Given what I showed off in January, the name makes sense: You aren't actually placing widgets directly on the lock screen but rather swiping to open a new page where the widgets can be added.

<string name="enable_glanceable_hub_toggle">Enable glanceable hub</string>

When you connect a physical keyboard to your device in Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2, you can now enable two new accessibility options: "sticky keys" and "bounce keys".

Sticky keys make it easier to enter keyboard shortcuts in quick succession. When you press a modifier key like Ctrl or Alt with sticky keys enabled, it'll stay pressed so you don't have to hold it down while pressing other keys.

Bounce keys lets the system ignore rapid, repeated presses of the same key.

These two accessibility options will soon be joined by a third "slow keys" option in a future release.

Google has announced the Fused Orientation Provider (FOP) API, which provides "quality and consistent device orientation by fusing signals from accelerometer, gyroscope and magnetometer."

Unlike the existing Android Rotation Vector, FOP is implemented by Google Play Services, which allows it to provide more consistent behavior by eliminating implementation variances among device makers. It can also offer better accuracy by incorporating algorithm updates more quickly and compensating for lower qualiy sensors or quirks in OEM implementations.

The FOP API is designed to be similar to the AOSP Rotation Vector to make transitions easy, and in some cases, it can return values piped through the Rotation Vector but with magnetic declination applied. It's available on Android 5.0+ but the output rate is limited to 200Hz on Android 12+ unless your app is granted the HIGH_SAMPLING_RATE_SENSORS permission.

Google Maps uses FOP to better cope with magnetic disturbances, improving the reliability of the cone for users.

Thanks to Project Mainline, Google has been able to push out updates to your Android device's time zone database since Android 10. This is useful to quickly address changes in time laws that happen from time to time.

However, before 2023, tzdata updates were "still bundled with other Mainline changes, sometimes leading to testing complexities and slower deployment." Google says that in 2023, they made "further investments in Mainline's infrastructure and decoupled the tzdata module from the other components." This isolation allows Google to release tzdata updates to Android users outside of the established release cadence.

(These out of band tzdata updates may be why some of the Google Play System Updates you've received haven't bumped the GPSU version. The GPSU version is only bumped when the Module Metadata APK is updated with a newer version name. This only happens when Google rolls out a new monthly Mainline train.)

SpaceX told the FCC the other day that their "Direct to Cell" Starlink technology works with "multiple models of unmodified Samsung, Apple, and Google devices" in both "urban and rural areas, indoors and outdoors, and in clear sky and under tree cover." 👀

Via PCMag.

In Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2, you can now see a preview before you change the keyboard layout for a connected physical keyboard.

Google's new MediaPipe LLM Inference API enables select large language models to run fully on-device. Supported models include Gemma 2B, Falcon 1B, Phi 2, and Stable LM 3B, while supported platforms are the web, Android, and iOS.

Google says Android support is "intended for experimental and research use only" as production apps should instead use Gemini Nano through Android's AICore, available on the Pixel 8 Pro and Galaxy S24 series currently, for on-device LLM inferencing. This is because AICore can take advantage of hardware-specific neural accelerators.

Google has announced that movie tickets and boarding passes will automatically be added to Google Wallet when you get a confirmation email in Gmail!

This feature is live for some global movie chains and airlines but more partners will be added in the future.

Furthermore, Google also says you can now manually archive passes in Wallet (on both mobile and Wear OS), which will move them down to the "Archived Passes" section.

Finally: Google has enabled display output on a Pixel phone for the first time!

With Android 14 QPR3 Beta 2, you can mirror your Pixel 8's screen to an external display, as Google has finally enabled DisplayPort Alternate Mode.

More details are available in my article for Android Authority.

Google is working on an "Adaptive Touch" feature for the upcoming Pixel 9 that will automatically adjust the phone's touch sensitivity.

Full details can be found in this article on Android Authority.