Android 14 is now available for Pixel phones

[Pup Shepard]

Android 14 comes to pixel devices.

Quote

Google has released Android 14, the latest version of the Android operating system. It’s available today on Pixel phones (4A 5G and up), with phones from manufacturers including Samsung, Nothing, OnePlus, and more supporting it “later this year.”

The update brings with it some new security features like deeper passkey support, privacy protections to deal with shady data brokers, and a plethora of UI, customization, and health updates.

 

Personally the advertised new feature list seems a bit, mild.  I am still waiting for manual controls for their camera app

 

https://www.theverge.com/2023/10/4/23900207/android-14-update-download-google-pixel

 

[Fasterthannothing]

From what I've seen in the beta builds this isn't supposed to be some ground breaking update feature wise it's supposed to be a refinement of performance and efficiency. Users on the last beta reported 8+hrs SOT or more on their pixel devices. Which is good because now that they are promising 7 years of updates for pixel to match Apple it's time to refine the OS to run slimmer and faster. The would crush apple in battery benchmarks if they could start squeezing out the same battery life per watt hr considering most Android phones are packing 5000mah batteries.

[nurax1337]

It is a pretty minor update imo (for now at least) - I'm satisfied with it on my Pixel 7 Pro. Seems pretty stable.

[RejZoR]

3 hours ago, beesjohn11 said:

I haven't received it yet

This is absolutely the thing I don't understand about everyone but Apple. When Apple rolls out an update, it's rolled out for EVERYONE at the same time, worldwide. Sure, you have to manually check for update, otherwise it'll seed it gradually, but if you are enthusiast and you want it now, you manually check and it'll be there without exception. You can try same thing with Pixel phones or Samsung and this just won't ever happen. You'll have to wait for several days if you're in the "wrong" region. It's kinda really annoying.

[Mynameischef]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

This is absolutely the thing I don't understand about everyone but Apple. When Apple rolls out an update, it's rolled out for EVERYONE at the same time, worldwide. Sure, you have to manually check for update, otherwise it'll seed it gradually, but if you are enthusiast and you want it now, you manually check and it'll be there without exception. You can try same thing with Pixel phones or Samsung and this just won't ever happen. You'll have to wait for several days if you're in the "wrong" region. It's kinda really annoying.

Took 6 months of talking with Samsung and ATT support to get my fold 3 to update, and they never really fixed it, one day i randomly got the noti to update to android 13 after being on 12 since release. Ended up trading it for an S23 Ultra for other reasons but it was incredibly annoying

[RejZoR]

1 hour ago, Mynameischef said:

Took 6 months of talking with Samsung and ATT support to get my fold 3 to update, and they never really fixed it, one day i randomly got the noti to update to android 13 after being on 12 since release. Ended up trading it for an S23 Ultra for other reasons but it was incredibly annoying

You guys in US of A have it especially bad because it's the stupid carriers who are dictating the updating policies and that's so sucky I can't describe it. I'm always on unlocked phones here in Europe so it's always manufacturers policy and releases, not when some clueless service provider feels like it. But it's still bad with pretty much everyone but Apple. Had both phone and smartwatch from them and when update was announced anywhere online, I checked for update and it was always there for 4 straight years every single time. Apple may do dumb things, but that's really impressive way to deliver stuff to users. Opposed to endless comment sections of people asking when they are getting updates literally every single time for any other vendor to a point it has basically become a meme.

[Mynameischef]

1 hour ago, RejZoR said:

You guys in US of A have it especially bad because it's the stupid carriers who are dictating the updating policies and that's so sucky I can't describe it. I'm always on unlocked phones here in Europe so it's always manufacturers policy and releases, not when some clueless service provider feels like it. But it's still bad with pretty much everyone but Apple. Had both phone and smartwatch from them and when update was announced anywhere online, I checked for update and it was always there for 4 straight years every single time. Apple may do dumb things, but that's really impressive way to deliver stuff to users. Opposed to endless comment sections of people asking when they are getting updates literally every single time for any other vendor to a point it has basically become a meme.

I agree, carriers should have 0 say on when to release OTA updates. I didn't realize that was another uniquely American problem, but honestly it tracks that something as simple as a phone update is locked behind a mega corp... Murica!

[TetraSky]

I expect my Samsung phone to receive the update between November and January, if the Android 12 and 13 releases are any indication... The last update my phone will receive. That 7 years of support for the pixel phones starting to sound attractive. As long as that is 7 generations of Android and not simply "security upgrades".

[HenrySalayne]

Does Android 14 has the app cloning feature or doesn't it? I find contradictory information on the internet about it.

[Dracarris]

17 hours ago, RejZoR said:

You guys in US of A have it especially bad because it's the stupid carriers who are dictating the updating policies and that's so sucky I can't describe it. I'm always on unlocked phones here in Europe so it's always manufacturers policy and releases, not when some clueless service provider feels like it.

I had no clue these carrier locked phones are still a thing. Also always on European phones and therefore never saw any of these locks and I finally thought this BS went the way of the dodo.

 

What control do carriers have in locked phones? OTA update control is beyond nuts, what else?

[captain_to_fire]

20 hours ago, Mynameischef said:

Took 6 months of talking with Samsung and ATT support to get my fold 3 to update

I do not know why would a wireless carrier control updates especially in the US. I bet for the rest of the world Android OEMs are free to push updates without carrier intervention. I guess if you're in the US and would want an Android phone, it'll probably be better to buy unlocked directly from the OEM, not from the carriers.

[Quackers101]

also coming a huge issue for games.

google and apple might be removing stuff from their platform, due to old unity version.

[hishnash]

34 minutes ago, Quackers101 said:

also coming a huge issue for games.

 

the real solution for this would be for the OS to lie to these apps about the device id and add id, just return a new random ID each time you call the api... tell devs that this is going ot happen with a little bit of notice and let us test to see if this will impact our apps. Some apps might break if the ids change randomly or if they are non-union (the app might use this id in mutli player as a user id for your lobby for example) but most apps that just use these for ad tracking will just work fine however ads will just be randomised untracked ads. 

This is more or less what apple do with device and add ids, devs need to expect that these could change at any time and that for many users these are just all the same (blank id) so you should not use them as user ids for content. 

[Obioban]

On 10/6/2023 at 12:45 PM, RejZoR said:

This is absolutely the thing I don't understand about everyone but Apple. When Apple rolls out an update, it's rolled out for EVERYONE at the same time, worldwide. Sure, you have to manually check for update, otherwise it'll seed it gradually, but if you are enthusiast and you want it now, you manually check and it'll be there without exception. You can try same thing with Pixel phones or Samsung and this just won't ever happen. You'll have to wait for several days if you're in the "wrong" region. It's kinda really annoying.

I don't think Apple gets enough credit for how refined their update process is. Basically, 5 steps:

1) developer beta. Almost certainly buggy, but if you want to test your software against it, this is what you need

2) public beta. For people really chomping at the bit, you can get it before official release and do bug testing for Apple.

3) released, but not push in any way. For people that want the latest, but aren't willing to roll the dice on a beta, when an update is first released you can manually check for it and download it.

4) released, with a notification stamp sent to the settings app icon, but not auto updated. At this point Apple is pretty confident it's a solid release, but not actually installing it on anyone's phone

5) Automatically installed, for anyone who has auto update on. By the time they get to this stage, they can be reasonably confident there's no show stopping bugs in the release. Anyone who's upset by it being installed should only be upset by "different bad", rather than actual issues with the software.

 

Through selective social engineering, people who are less tolerant of bugs get less bugs.

 

And then, a separate track for emergency security updates that can get pushed through immediately but don't come with feature changes.

[WolframaticAlpha]

On 10/7/2023 at 6:32 PM, Dracarris said:

carrier locked phones are still a thing. Also always on European phones and therefore never saw any of these locks and I finally thought this BS went the way of the dodo.

Carrier locked phones are a special kind of cancer. Especially on the Android side, where the entire thing is called with unneeded apps and all. One of the best things about iphones is how apple reins in all the stupid carriers on contracts. But a carrier iPhone and it is pristine. Buy an android, and you will be called with 3rd rate versions of popular apps. Pretty terrible.

 

5 hours ago, Obioban said:

I don't think Apple gets enough credit for how refined.

The experience of updating on almost all modern apple devices is sublime. One of the main reasons why I completely switched over from windows to Mac for laptops was because how smooth the entire update process was on osx. A notification pops up, you click update and it does everything nicely. MS had for the longest time, an extremely broken process toupdate windows, where even going into the terminal in Linux took less time to update.

 

[Mark Kaine]

Android on Pixel... so much wow... zzZ

 

Wake me up when it's on iPhone, please...  ~

 

 

On 10/19/2023 at 8:47 PM, WolframaticAlpha said:

The experience of updating on almost all modern apple devices is sublime

oh, yeah? well I'll find out then i guess, until then,  nice story,  bro! 

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