Google Play has just announced a new data deletion policy that I welcome 🎉

If your Android app allows users to create an account, then Google Play will eventually require you to offer a way for users to initiate account AND data deletion from within the app and from the web.

Google Play will require that the web link for account/data deletion be provided to users through your app's Data Safety section, as shown in the GIF above. This is so users can request deletion WITHOUT reinstalling your app.

When completing the Data Safety form, there'll be new questions related to this data deletion policy. Google's asking developers to submit answers by December 7, 2023. Sometime in early 2024, users will see the new data deletion badge and area in apps' store listings.

Developers that need more time to comply with this requirement (such as needing to build out account/data deletion tools) can file an extension in the Play Console until May 31, 2024. After that date non-compliant apps may be removed from Google Play.

For more info on this new policy, read Google's blog post and support page.

Let's continue this thread, shall we?

4) Bluetooth Audio Routing

"Choose whether different types of audio are played on your hearing device or phone speaker"

If you have a hearing aid connected to an Android 14 device, you'll be able to choose where certain sounds (ringtone, call, media, system sounds) will play from by default ("decide automatically", "play on hearing device", or "play on phone speaker").

5) Dual screen:

When an app is using both displays to show content, you'll get a notification that "dual screen is on." When the device gets too warm, you'll be warned that "Dual Screen is unavailable because your phone is getting too warm."

6) SYSTEM_CALL_STREAMING:

Android 14 adds a new SYSTEM_CALL_STREAMING role that only system apps targeting SDK 34 and which have a CALL_STREAMING_SERVICE implemented can hold. This role grants the permissions CALL_AUDIO_INTERCEPTION and RECORD_AUDIO, which can be used to grant access to APIs to stream phone call audio between Android devices.

Following Android 14 DP1's release, Google published documentation for the CallControl and StreamingCall APIs. The latter was removed as presumably it's only intended to be internal.

What I suspect this'll be used for is to stream voice call audio from an Android phone to an Android tablet. Imagine you get a call on your Pixel, but you're near your Pixel Tablet. Tap the output switcher and select the tablet to begin streaming the phone call to your tablet!

There is some evidence behind this, by the way. Back in the Android 12L DP, there was an app that suggested a "Nearby calling" feature was in the works that would let you transfer calls between your phone and Nest Hub.

And in Android 13, Google added some new cross-device calling APIs (the CALL_AUDIO_INTERCEPTION permission was also added in Android 13).

Google Chrome is experimenting with Android 14's new ChooserActions API to display custom actions at the top of Android's share sheet.

This is an important step for Chrome to ditch its custom share sheet on Android, and hopefully other apps follow suit!

Chrome currently uses its own custom share sheet to display these actions (copy link, send to your devices, QR code, print), but Google is trying to move developers away from using custom share sheets.

A new Chrome flag (chrome://flags#share-sheet-migration-android) toggles whether to use the app's custom share sheet or the OS one. When the flag is enabled on Dev or Canary builds on Android 14 devices, the ChooserAction API will be used to display these app actions in the OS share sheet.

Alongside the new row for app-defined actions (powered by the ChooserActions API), Android 14 brings a couple of other improvements to the share sheet experience. You can track the progress of Chrome's share sheet changes here.

Turns out we don't have to wait and see, because contrast level controls are already in Android 14 DP2!

A new "contrast level" slider is buried under Settings > Accessibility > Color and motion. It currently only supports "Standard", medium, and "High" values. This slider controls the value of Settings.Secure.contrast_level (0 for "Standard", 0.5 for the mid setting, and 1.0 for "High") which in turn can be read by apps calling AccessibilityManager's new getUiContrast() method.

SystemUI's ThemeOverlayController class calls that method to read the color contrast value and generate the "dynamic" color scheme accordingly, which is then mapped to the R.color values I mentioned before through the "dynamic" FRRO.

I dumped the values of the "dynamic" FRRO generated based on the AOSP wallpaper and contrast_level values of 0, 0.5, and 1.0. It's evident that as the contrast increases, the tone (lightness) of foreground colors becomes further from the tone of background colors.

Google's official explanation of the dynamic scheme (H/T @kdrag0n):

"Colors without backgrounds do not change tone when contrast changes. Colors with backgrounds become closer to their background as contrast lowers, and further when contrast increases."

How this ends up looking in apps depends on how devs choose which tokens to color which UI elements, but in general, devs adhering to Material You guidelines and using the Material components library won't need to worry about the implementation/handling of contrast level changes.

Pixel updates are out, and now the AOSP tags are up as well!

Here they are:

AOSP tag | Build ID

android-13.0.0_r38 | TQ2A.230405.003

android-13.0.0_r39 | TQ2A.230405.003.A2

android-13.0.0_r40 | TQ2A.230405.003.B2

android-13.0.0_r41 | TQ2A.230405.003.E1

In the attached screenshot, you can see which build ID corresponds to which Pixel OTA.

Android 14 Beta 1 is here! This is the first Android 14 release that’s available for users enrolled in the Android Beta program! Follow me on Twitter to see my full breakdown of what’s new, but first, read my summary here of what Google announced.

Android 14 is introducing an important security feature that authenticator apps can use to block malware from stealing your 2FA codes, like how the “Cerberus” banking trojan and “Nexus” malware were caught snooping on Google Authenticator. Here’s what you should know 👇

The Accessibility API lets apps read the contents of the screen and perform inputs on behalf of the user. It’s intended for screen readers and alternative input systems, but it’s open to any app. Malware authors love abusing this API.

Well-known malware like Cerberus and Nexus have been reported to use Accessibility to read 2FA codes from Google Authenticator. Currently, if an app’s malicious Accessibility Service is enabled, there’s nothing stopping them from doing that.

In Android 14, though, apps can set an attribute to prevent non-accessibility tools from interacting with important Views. Google Authenticator eg. can ensure that only accessibility tools can read 2FA codes.

For more information on this new #Android14 security feature, including a video that shows how it can block malware from reading your 2FA codes, check out my latest article for Esper.

If you’re a content creator looking to cover Android 14 Beta 1, I made a document that summarizes ALL the changes I’ve found in Android 14 so far. I’ve made it as simple as possible without sacrificing technical accuracy. Send me a DM if you want to take a look!

I plan to turn this doc into an article after cleaning it up a bit. I’ve documented almost every change I’ve spotted so far and will continue to keep it updated. All I have left to summarize are some developer-oriented changes, which is why I’m opening this up to creators now.

Follow this thread if you want to see EVERYTHING that’s new in Android 14 Beta 1!

Android 14 Beta 1 adds a “transparent navigation bar” toggle to Developer Options that “make[s] [the] navigation bar background color transparent by default.” More details on how this feature works in this article on XDA-Developers.

Google Wallet may be bringing back location-based suggestions for loyalty cards in Android 14 👀

It used to have this feature, but it's been missing since the app relaunched last year!

Full details in my latest article for XDA-Developers!

Some have reported that the max number of custom actions an app can add to the share sheet using Android 14's ChooserAction API is 7.

That's how many I added using Tasker, but the actual limit is much higher than that, as pointed out by @thegreatporg and shown off in this video.

The actual limit seems to just be 1MB for the Bundle size.

Neat: A developer built an unofficial Nearby Share client for macOS!

It currently supports receiving files from Android over WiFi LAN only, but the fact that it even works is impressive in and of itself. I wouldn't be surprised to hear that Google's building its own macOS client, but this could be useful if you need to send files right now!

Original Reddit post by the developer | NearDrop on GitHub

Screenshot credit: @bhusankumar2k2

According to the latest Android version distribution statistics shared by Google (via 9to5Google), the % of (GMS Android) devices running Android 13 has more than doubled since January 2023 - from 5% to 12.1%.

Other changes:

- Android 12: 18.9% -> 16.5%
- Android 11: 24.4% -> 23.5%
- Android 10: 19.5% -> 18.5%
- Android 9: 13.2% -> 12.3%
- Android 8: 9.5% -> 6.7%
- Android 7: 3.7% -> 3.3%
- Android 6: 2.8% -> 2.5%
- Android 5: 2.1% -> 1.9%
- Android 4.4: 0.7% -> 0.6%

If you want to better visualize these stats in pie chart format, 9to5Google's article has 'em.

The updated statistics are not yet available through Android Studio, presumably they're only shown on the backend for now.

Android 14 is bringing a couple of enhancements to Dynamic System Updates (DSU), the feature that lets you boot a generic Android build without overwriting the original installation.

These include:

1) Ability to install a new data partition without supplying a new system image, in case you want to simulate a factory reset.

2) Ability to reboot immediately into the dynamic system when installation is completed.

3) Ability to set "sticky mode" - ie. persist the dynamic system across reboots - during installation rather than post-install.

4) Ability to hide the notification about the status of the dynamic system (in use or ready) so OEMs can customize the UI.

5) Ability to use the default strings provided by keyguard manager when showing the dialog that prompts the user for device credentials.

H/T @onenormalusername

These DSU changes probably came in response to feedback from OEMs. There are surprisingly a couple of OEMs who actually use DSU to let users test Android betas, like Sharp did with their Android 13 beta.