Android 14 offers a lightly customizable lock screen and not much else.
Having tested Android 14 a while, there have been some nice battery life improvements. I’d consider that worthwhile.
Indeed.
After I updated my Pixel 6A, I noticed it comfortably lasts 1,5 - 2 days with light use (music streaming + Bluetooth, youtube, comic book reading, occasional maps navigation etc).
Before the update it lasted about 1-1,5 days with the same amount of use.
I don’t have any screenshots to verify this (from accubattery or sth similar), so take this as anecdotal.
It wouldn’t shock me. A lot of improvements to 14 are reeling in idle usage. In fact, that’s a big focus on the last 3 or 4 Android versions, and something Android is doing to catch up to iOS.
It seems better for battery life to do batching and budgeting of background activities as much as possible, instead of continuous, unregulated usage.
I think the one thing I miss is that Android used to have idle background battery usage estimates, so that you knew which apps were killing your battery in the background. It’s not quite as easy to figure that out anymore, but maybe something new will come along to help out with that.
I think the one thing I miss is that Android used to have idle background battery usage estimates, so that you knew which apps were killing your battery in the background. It’s not quite as easy to figure that out anymore, but maybe something new will come along to help out with that.
I always use Franco Kernel Manager for this, along with Better Battery Stats to detect warlocks, in case there are any.
My device is rooted, but as far as I know root is not required to do this.
You’d need to keep an eye for a longer time to have a better metric that is for sure but usually a new OS update implies background stuff going all the time to make the system behave better… So if even with that downside you are perceiving an improvement that seems like good news!
What about the fact that you can use your phone’s camera as a webcam for your PC without any sketchy apps installed
Did this feature actually release? I thought it was coming in a future update.
Not released yet. It’s supposed to be in the next Quarterly Platform Release. (QPR1)
How do you use this? Does the phone need to be wired in, or is there some wifi solution?
without any sketchy apps installed
How do you do it without an app?
It’s in beta right now, to be released in a month or so.
It supports wifi and usb, that’s what it says in the description of the app.
If you’re looking for a solution that requires no ‘sketchy’ client, this supports rtsp and a few other protocols. Works with obs virtual cam really well
https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.pas.webcam
I do this on 13 with a normal app. Why would you use a sketchy app?
I use DroidCamX, is it one of the sketchy apps you mentioned? If so, why?
- It doesn’t really explain how it works and what you need on the receiving side. I use a Linux PC and reading the instructions always seemed somewhat convoluted, which makes sense - a proper way to enable your phone as a webcam would need functionality that requires root privileges in my opinion.
- The android app is closed source, which I try to avoid. Not a big problem but I’d prefer something open.
So no big points, but I’d prefer a native solution, as in plug in your phone on PC and have a full webcam available as a source in every program.
I’m always suspicious of apps which setup a local web server to accomplish some basic task. When Zoom did this, it was a security nightmare.
Just based on the screenshots, DroidCamX sets up a local webserver on the phone, and then the video is accessible on the local network (for example: http://192.168.0.17:4747/video). This means anyone on the local network can access the webcam, which in an office or school setting, might be disastrous. If a coworker were in a conference room using this app, a malicious coworker could use this to spy on the meeting surreptitiously.
However it’s implemented in the OS, a basic requirement is that there is some authentication to link the phone’s camera to the computer, and that the video is encrypted in transit, to avoid man in the middle attacks.
Good thing I only use it locally on my own network at home. I see why this is dar from ideal, specially since the app only ask for the IP and port before accepting the connection
I wish Ars handed over coverage of Android to a person who wasn’t this unabashedly hostile against it and Google. These same people claim “revolutionary” changes when Apple so much as modifies one bit of the iPhone’s layout.
Ron Amadeo anti-Android? You can’t be serious?
Ron Amadeo never covered Apple products afaik and sometimes he can be annoying and concentrating on little things, but most of the time he’s very good and objective.
Aren’t there a bunch of improvements for foldable devices?
Also, there are a lot of security and privacy changes forced on developers when targeting API 34 that will help protect end users without them knowing.
I didn’t even notice any difference really
I don’t care about costumizations. Just give me better under the hood optimizations for better battery
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They have done some work here. There’s a 30% reduction in cold application starts, which improves performance and battery life. Android 14 is also far more aggressive at restricting CPU resources in idle apps.
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