The Pixel's December 2023 Feature Drop will let you set a different live wallpaper on the lock screen than the home screen!

In response to an Issue Tracker post from a Samsung engineer asking when this feature will be added, a Googler said that "the feature is enabled on udc-qpr-dev."

udc-qpr-dev is Google's internal development branch for Android 14 QPR1, the underlying platform release for the upcoming December 2023 Pixel Feature Drop

udc = Upside Down Cake, the internal dessert name for Android 14
qpr = Quarterly Platform Release
dev = development branch

What's interesting about this Issue Tracker post is that I'm pretty sure they used the wrong ticket ID, because this conversation likely wasn't meant to be public. The ticket directly talks about the Android Bootcamp 2023, an invite-only seminar where Google invited OEMs to talk about upcoming changes in Android.

The existence of this feature isn't news in and of itself. I first revealed this feature was in the works back in March when I wrote about it for XDA-Developers. I got it working a few weeks later following the release of Android 14 Beta 1. The feature is currently disabled in public Android 14 beta builds but can be enabled if you toggle the system property persist.wm.debug.lockscreen_live_wallpaper (requires root).

It's good to see that the independent lock screen live wallpaper feature is planned to go live in Android 14 QPR1, though!

One UI Watch 5 based on Android 13 is rolling out for the Galaxy Watch 5, and as I suspected, the build declares the com.google.android.clockwork.active_unlock feature. Active Unlock is the name for the API underpinning the upcoming Watch Unlock feature.

For context, I recently discovered that the Galaxy Watch 6 series also declares the PackageManager feature for Active Unlock. This suggests that the Watch Unlock feature won't only work with the Pixel Watch.

If you're wondering what Watch Unlock is and how it's different from "trusted devices" under Smart Lock, check out this explainer I made.

(Thanks for Armando R for checking!)

The FCC filings for the Google Pixel 8 series went public the other day, and as Reddit user Starks points out, it seems both devices may support Wi-Fi 7 (802.11be).

Kamila Wojciechowska previously reported both devices will use Broadcom's BCM4389 chip, which supports Wi-Fi 7, so this isn't unexpected.

Sadly, UWB is once again missing from the non-Pro model, according to these FCC filings. Very strange omission if Google indeed plans on launching its own tracker tag. Plus, this may also mean some upcoming features like "hold close to cast" may also not be supported.

Google Home's new "home panel" feature has landed on the first non-Pixel device! Samsung Galaxy S23 devices on the second One UI 6 beta now have this feature which, as I previously reported, would be available to non-Pixel devices running Android 14.

Pixel devices gained support for the "home panel" in the June 2023 Pixel Feature Drop with Android 13 QPR3. For more context, see my previous post.

Samsung already implemented device-to-device eSIM transfer and pSIM-to-eSIM conversion into One UI!

Most of us thought this would only be coming to devices after Google rolled it out first on Pixel, but Samsung quietly implemented it in One UI 5.1 without many of us noticing.

Here are the steps to access these features:

eSIM transfer

1) Open Settings
2) Tap "Connections"
3) Tap "SIM manager"
4) Tap "add eSIM"
5) Tap "other ways to connect to a mobile network"
6) Tap "transfer SIM from another device"
7) Unlock your old Samsung device (must be running One UI 5.1+ and have a secure lock screen) and place it next to your new phone
8) Tap "Transfer" on your other device

pSIM-to-eSIM conversion:

1) Open Settings
2) Tap "Connections"
3) Tap "SIM manager"
4) Tap on settings for your physical SIM
5) Tap "convert to eSIM"

I haven't tested this myself; I really don't want to convert my physical SIM to an eSIM because it would be a pain to change devices, and eSIM transfer on Samsung devices right now only works between Samsung devices running One UI 5.1+. Still, the fact that these features are already here in One UI, and that nobody noticed them (or at least, I haven't seen any article reference them), is interesting!

(Thanks to Dylan Huynh for the tip!)

Google has released Wearable SDK version 18.1.0, bringing Phone Switching Support.

One of the major quality-of-life improvements in Wear OS 4 is the ability to migrate a watch to a new phone without factory resetting the watch!

To prepare for this, Google has released a new version of its Wearable Support Library. Developers of Wear OS apps can use the new NodeClient.OnNodeMigratedListener method to receive a "notification that a watch has migrated from a previous phone to this phone. This notification contains an archive of the data items written by the previous phone. You may inspect the data items in the archive and integrate them into your own data items."

Here's a summary of what else Google announced for Wear OS 4. And an overview of what's new in the Wear OS 4 Developer Preview.