Hit and hope – You’re at the mercy of your device’s maker regarding when/if you’ll actually get Android 14, and which goodies will end up on your smartphone. The tips here are for vanilla Android – your options might differ. If you have a Pixel 4a or newer, head to ‘System update’ in the settings to check if the revamped OS is waiting for you.

Lock it down – Security is a major part of Android 14. It’ll block ancient apps built for Android 5.1 or older – although anything already on your phone will still run. Passkey support is improved, and there are new PIN input options. In ‘Security and privacy’ > ‘Device unlock’ > ‘Screen lock’, you can disable animations to thwart people nosing over your shoulder as you type to unlock.

Share the love – Android has a default share sheet, but some apps override it to add custom components. Android 14 seeks to stop this by giving app creators ‘ChooserAction’ slots that surface key commands within the standard share sheet. The redesign also makes it clearer what your action will do, such as sharing a link or an image.

Check your battery – Android 14 is optimised for battery life, and tracking options are improved. In Settings > Battery > ‘Battery usage’, there’s a welcome return for ‘Screen time since last full charge’, which helps you understand phone use. For background drainage, dig into ‘View by systems’ to see what’s eating your battery.

Adjust alerts

Splash the flash – In Settings, go to Notifications > ‘Flash notifications’. Toggle and preview options to flash your camera and/or screen when a notification arrives. This feature is designed for the hard of hearing but can benefit anyone surrounded by noise.

Fine-tune volumes – In the ‘Sound and vibration’ section of Settings, you now have the means to define separate volume levels for your ringtone and notifications. So you can make alerts more subtle but still be sure to never miss a call.

Read more easily

Go (really) large – You could already scale fonts in Android (Settings > Display > ‘Display size and text’). But now you can go all the way up to a whopping 200%. Smartly, the scaling is non-linear, which stops headings from becoming too gigantic.

Access quick settings – When you only want to change your system font size temporarily, digging into Settings is annoying. Handily, then, you can use the ‘Font size’ tile in Quick Settings, which gives you the same font-resizing slider as found in Settings.

Make it your own

Rock the lock screen – In Settings, head to ‘Wallpaper and style’. Swipe between the clock options to choose a style; tap the button below to access a screen where you can define the clock’s colour and size.

Take a shortcut – Scroll down and tap Shortcuts, then select which two action buttons you’d like on your lock screen – including Home, Camera, Do Not Disturb, Mute, Torch, Video Camera, Wallet, and a QR code scanner.

Create wallpapers – Under ‘More wallpapers’, you can choose from a built-in selection – or make your own. For example, tap ‘Emoji workshop’, choose a bunch of different emojis, and then decide how they’re displayed in terms of pattern and colour scheme.

Master gestures

Drop it – Although it’s best suited to larger screens, drag-and-drop exists on Android 14 phones. For example, select and then tap-hold a block of text. With another finger, use the app switcher to change apps, and let go to drop the text in place.

Get back – Bit of a punt, this one, since it’s not fully baked at the time of writing, but with Android 14 you should get a preview of what a back gesture (slide from left) will do. This could be useful, stopping you from unexpectedly ending up on your home screen.

After teasing us all year through a number of Android 14 betas that permeated the internet, it appears that a stable version of Google’s next big update might be dropping alongside the search giant’s Pixel 8 release tomorrow, 4 October.

That’s according to Telus – a Canadian carrier (via SamMobile), which announced on its website that Android U (14) would hit all Pixel phones from tomorrow, 4 October, before delisting the information entirely a few days later. It’s worth absorbing this information with a pinch of salt, though the announcement’s removal does seem to point towards it being correct.

It wouldn’t be the first time Google’s timed a new Android version to launch alongside a new slate of phones, either. It did the same with Android 12 back when the Pixel 6 hit shelves in the US – giving new owners something new and fresh to play with right off the bat.

It’s not known whether Android 14 will get its official debut during Google’s Pixel unveiling livestream or be relegated to the company’s official blog. Either way, we’ll keep you in the loop.

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No more ads on TikTok (but you’ll have to pay)

You might soon be able to watch TikTok without any ads. Sure, it’ll cost you, but that’s just how social media works in 2023. You pay a monthly subscription for the pleasure of doomscrolling without any ads interrupting that well-earned dopamine. It’s a model touted by Snapchat, Meta, and most controversially, X to some success. Now TikTok is apparently joining in.

The story was first spotted within the app’s code and reported by Android Authority, and later confirmed by TikTok to TechCrunch. The company said that it was testing the new service in a single, English-speaking market outside of the US, failing to elaborate on a larger-scale rollout.

The report reckons that the service would cost $5/m once it reached testing in the US, though TikTok disputed the site’s claim that the small-scale test would wend its way to the US at all. We’re not quite sure who TikTok thinks it’s fooling, since a US test would, uh, make the company a lot of money. And TikTok, or rather ByteDance, likes money. A lot.

Like YouTube Premium, the ad-free experience would only remove ads placed by TikTok itself and wouldn’t do much to quell the torrent on creator-driven campaigns or one-off brand deals.

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Another day, another Spotify AI story

Spotify is, once again, delving even deeper into the AI landscape. Following the successful launch of its AI DJ and the numerous tests covering everything from AI-translated podcasts to auto-generated transcripts, a report from TechCrunch shows that the streamer is getting into something new: AI Playlists.

This wouldn’t just be a rehash of the AI DJ, either. According to references discovered within the Spotify app’s code, these would be playlists created from a user prompt, like that of the Niche mixes feature. Where it differs, apparently is how the music is sourced. Niche mixes use Spotify’s own personalisation tech and algorithms to build a playlist – despite what it may look like from the outside.

Chris Messina, who originally discovered the code and posted his findings to Threads, told TechCrunch that he believes the new feature may be tied to the Blend feature, and might allow for two users to create an AI-curated playlist together. He also said that the code was found in the latest build of the Spotify app, meaning that the feature is still in the early stages of development, and won’t be released anytime soon, if at all.

Spotify failed to comment on its plans to build AI playlists.

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You’ll soon be able to livestream games on X

If you thought Elon Musk was just joking when he said he wanted to turn X into an ‘everything app’, then you probably don’t know much about Elon Musk. That apparently includes videogame livestreaming, like that of Twitch, with the site currently testing a basic subset of streaming features, now available to Premium users.

Musk showed off the feature himself via a 53-minute stream of Diablo IV. He didn’t use his main account but rather a new account with the handle @cyb3rgam3r420 (three guesses who came up with that). Musk later replied to the account and confirmed that the feature was currently being tested.

Premium subscribers can set up their own streams, though the process isn’t a simple one. This video explains how a user can connect Open Broadcaster Software (OBS) to their X account via Media Studio before they can stream on X. Musk says that it’s “currently way too hard to do this,” and that it “took, like, hours to set this up,” before mentioning that he would like to make it “effortless”.

For now, the service’s streaming capabilities are basic. It seems to support viewer comments at the moment – though they’re slightly delayed by 10-15 seconds, according to Musk. Whether X will be able to compete with the likes of Twitch, YouTube, or Kick without the same suite of features (or streamers) that’ll bring in eyeballs, we’ll have to wait and see.

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