Android 14 is adding a new safety feature to protect your hearing: Headphone loud sound alert.

Android will alert you if you've been listening to audio at a volume above the recommended level for long periods over your headphones. You can keep listening or lower the volume.

This was announced during the "what's new in Android Accessibility" session (H/T Cooooooob on Telegram).

I've actually been tracking this feature since before Google announced it and have a few more details to share.

Android keeps track of how often you’re “exposed” to excessively loud “sound doses.” The OS can show warnings about “momentary exposures”, but once you exceed 5x the “loud sound signals” you can “safely listen to in a week over headphones”, Android can auto lower the volume.

This feature is controlled by config_audio_csd_enabled_default, which is now enabled by default in Android 14 Beta 2. It seems this “headphone loud sound alert” feature is intended to comply with updated recommendations in the IEC 62368-1 3rd edition.

I couldn’t get my hands on a copy of this document to tell you exactly how this works. You have to pay ~$452 for it, and all I want to see is chapter 10.6.5 - protection of persons. Sorry, I ain’t paying that lol.

I did find a document summarizing the requirement, though. “In 2018, IEC 62368-1 was reviewed and the concept that weekly sound dose should be limited to the equivalent of 80dBA for 80 hours/week or 1.6 Pa²h as a standard safety level was also added to this standard.“

If I'm not mistaken, the volume safety recommendation in the previous edition of IEC 62368-1 is what formed the basis of Android's existing warning when you try to raise the volume of audio (when connected to a headphone) above a "safe level", as required IIRC in the EU.

Parts of this feature are already implemented in AOSP (eg. the HAL), though I'm not sure if the feature is actually functional in Beta 2 yet. Once Android 14’s source code is out, we can see exactly how it works. If you see this feature in Beta 2, let me know!

Google is apparently preparing to let you use your phone as a dashcam, according to 9to5Google. A dogfood build of the Personal Safety app was released via Google Play (probably by accident), and in it there's a new, hidden Dashcam feature.

As the article explains, your phone can record video for up to 24 hrs. You can use your phone while recording or lock it to save power. Videos are compressed and average ~30MB/min. Unsaved videos can be auto deleted after 1 day, 3 days, or 1 week.

Recording can auto start when connected to a specific Bluetooth device and you can choose whether to record audio.

There are already loads of 3P apps that offer dashcam functionality, but it's nice to see Google implement this into a 1P app that's preloaded on many devices.

As I previously explained, the Personal Safety app became an optional preload for OEMs with Android 13. Some OEMs like Nothing and Sony ship it on their devices; others like ASUS do not currently.

It's unclear if the Dashcam feature will be exclusive to Pixel or not, but theoretically it should be easier to ship on non-Pixels than, say, car crash detection. BUT given the thermal/OIS concerns, it'll probably need extensive testing before it's shipped on any device.

I've already got a dashcam, but being in Texas...no way would I use my phone as a dashcam. It would literally explode lol.

(Screenshots: @nailsad_eleos)

Android's QR code scanner, powered by Google Play Services, is starting to more widely roll out a "scan from photo" button to let you scan a QR code that's within an image in your gallery. Tapping the button opens the Photo Picker.

This feature was first mentioned in the January 2023 Google System Updates changelog as rolling out with version 23.02.23 of Google Play Services. However, I think many users only recently started to see it. (I still don't see it on any of my Pixels).

The QR code scanner Quick Setting tile was added to AOSP in Android 13, and on GMS Android devices, it's powered by Google Play Services. Soon, Pixel phones will be able to access the QR code scanner from a lock screen shortcut as Google showed off at I/O.

The new lock screen shortcut customization feature is part of AOSP so OEMs can enable this experience as well. (The Wallpaper & styles app is proprietary, but the app it's based on, ThemePicker, is in AOSP. Plus the SystemUI-side changes are also in AOSP.)

Screenshot credits: Kieron Quinn

Android 14 will let you navigate between apps when dragging and dropping items, meaning you don't have to have both apps open side-by-side in split-screen mode to be able to move text or images between them (provided the apps support drag-and-drop).

It's kind of clunky to do this on a phone given the limited screen real estate, but I can imagine this being more useful if you have a tablet with a keyboard + mouse attached so you can click & hold on text/images with the mouse and use keyboard shortcuts to switch apps.

Video credits: @nailsad_eleos for @google_nws

Android 14's platform Credential Manager supports multiple password managers simultaneously and lets third-party managers save and retrieve passkeys.

When Android 14 launches, 1Password, Dashlane, Keeper, and Okta will support Credential Manager (ie. passkeys on Android).

On Android 13 and lower, the Credential Manager is backed by Google Password Manager - which is part of Google Play Services.

Credential Manager supports passwords on Android 4.4+ but passkeys only on Android 9+, according to the documentation.

Source: How to reduce reliance on passwords in Android apps with passkey support (Video on YouTube)

Hands-on: I finally got this fully working, so here's a full demo of Android 14's new partial screen recording feature.

This feature lets you record a single app without any System UI elements or notifications appearing in the video! A useful feature to have when you need to screen record something to share with others!

(In the app selector dialog, you can swipe up to show the full app list. You can also swipe left or right on the carousel to show more apps from your recents app list.)

EDIT:

If you leave the app you selected to record, then Android will continue screen recording but the content will be black. If you open the app again, the contents will once again be captured in the same recording.

The recording doesn't end unless you swipe down and end it manually.

Android 14 Beta 2 continues to improve on the "app cloning" feature I first revealed in DP1. A new launcher flag called ENABLE_APP_CLONING_CHANGES_IN_LAUNCHER has been added that, when toggled, hides cloned apps from the work profile tab, as illustrated below.

However, the home screen icons are still not differentiated yet, even though in Settings, the cloned apps have a unique icon badge. This will hopefully be remedied in a future build!

For more details on this in-development app cloning feature, refer to this article.