Android 14 Developer Preview 2 Arrives for Pixel Phones

The next release of the Android 14 Developer Preview is here as Developer Preview 2 (DP2). Since this is still a “developer preview,” there may not be a bunch of fun stuff for you to play with because that’s not the point. For now, Google is very much still getting developers into the new build to prepare for a later release.

What’s new in Android Developer Preview 2?

For Android 14 Developer Preview 2, Google is highlighting several changes. The first is in the Photo Picker pop-up that shows when an app asks to access a phone’s media library. Now, a pop-up will ask if a user wants to allow access to all photos, select photos, or if they want to deny the request. The new “Select photos” option lets a user select individual items rather than allowing the app to view more.

Next up we have the Credential Manager as a platform API, which means that Android 14 will support more secure ways to sign-in, including passwordless sign-in options. We’re talking about passkeys, an option that is quickly becoming a standard.

Google is also talking more about background optimizations and activities, with Android 14 putting restrictions on when apps can start in the background and the amount of work they can do. Google has made a change to when an app hits the “cached state” after being closed and also put restrictions on apps interacting with background activities. It’s super developer-level stuff, but the point is to improve device system health and battery life.

Finally, Google is limiting the number of non-dismissible notifications in Android 14. Going forward, notifications that are “important to device functionality, like system and device policy notifications” will stay non-dismissible, but everything else should be dismissible by the user.

Download Android 14 DP2

For availability, the Developer Preview 2 is now available for the Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7, Pixel 6a, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, and Pixel 4a (5G). Keep in mind that Google is once again saying that this is only for developers, not for general use by us regular folks.

Downloads: Factory Images | OTA Files

Release date: March 8, 2023
Build: UPP2.230217.004
Emulator support: x86 (64-bit), ARM (v8-A)
Security patch level: March 2023
Google Play services: 23.06.13

If you are a developer (or crazy), you can find the new updates at the links above. However, if you were previously on a developer preview, you should receive an update to DP2 over the air.

For those on Android 13 QPR Beta builds, Google is recommending that you update to Developer Preview 2 now if you’d rather not wipe your device when doing so. Later updates may not like the build date differences between QPR releases and Android 14 releases, causing you to need to wipe.

And speaking of the Android Beta Program – Android 14 is still not a part of it. According to the Android 14 schedule, we could see it launch next month.

If there are any fun new user-facing features, we’ll do our best to document those here.