{"id":479617,"date":"2023-02-09T15:59:36","date_gmt":"2023-02-09T13:59:36","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/?p=479617"},"modified":"2023-02-09T16:02:39","modified_gmt":"2023-02-09T14:02:39","slug":"first-android-14-preview-launched","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/software\/479617-first-android-14-preview-launched.html","title":{"rendered":"First Android 14 preview launched"},"content":{"rendered":"

Google has rolled out the first Android 14 Preview<\/strong><\/a> for developers, allowing them to test their apps on its upcoming mobile operating system (OS).<\/p>\n

The first preview is an early baseline build focused on developer feedback, with new features, APIs, and behaviour changes.<\/p>\n

Google typically keeps most of the major new features for its annual Android update locked down until its I\/O conference in May.<\/p>\n

However, one feature that has now been confirmed is that Android 14 will block users from installing apps made for Android 6.0 or older to protect them from malicious software.<\/p>\n

The confirmation comes after 9to5Google spotted a code change on the Android Open Source Project website in late January 2023<\/strong><\/a>, which detailed stricter API guidelines to block sideloading apps only supported on older versions of Android.<\/p>\n

Ars Technica reported<\/strong><\/a> that Android has typically included backward compatibility for older apps that can run on separate sets of restrictions than newer ones.<\/p>\n

The latter must comply with tougher security, privacy, and background processing restrictions.<\/p>\n

Because the old apps don’t have to support them, they can be more susceptible to malware.<\/p>\n

The change is unlikely to impact most Android users, as the minimum Android version an app needs to be put on the Google Play Store is Android 12.<\/p>\n

The ability to sideload Android APKs that only support older versions of the OS is what will fall away.<\/p>\n

Google plans to gradually ramp up the blocked minimum app level to reach Android 6, so smartphones will not immediately stop supporting the old apps when they receive Android 14.<\/p>\n

It will also allow users to bypass the block by using an ADB command line flag\u2014”adb install –bypass-low-target-sdk-block FILENAME.apk”.<\/p>\n

That process requires a USB cable, PC, and Android Developer SDK, so it will likely only be undertaken by technically-skilled users.<\/p>\n

\n

Now read: Samsung Galaxy S23’s pre-loaded software takes up 60GB storage out of the box<\/a><\/h2>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Google is trying to make its Android ecosystem safer by blocking the sideloading of apps that are only compatible on older versions of its mobile OS. <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":23,"featured_media":479631,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17934,16],"tags":[32030,397,83875,84217,167,10100,84215],"class_list":["post-479617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-smartphones","category-software","tag-alphabet","tag-android","tag-android-14","tag-android-14-preview","tag-google","tag-google-play","tag-smartphone-security"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479617"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/23"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=479617"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":479709,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/479617\/revisions\/479709"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/479631"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=479617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=479617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/mybroadband.co.za\/news\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=479617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}