Hi, this is Wayne again with a topic “Android 15 Beta 2 is HERE + Wear OS 5, Gemini on Google TV, and MORE! | Google I/O 2024”.
Android 15 public beta 2 is here and from looks fit on the surface. It focuses a lot on privacy and security and we’ll dig into that in just a minute. But now, if you want to try Android 50 in the beta, you can do on a whole host of new devices. So people like honor OnePlus, nothing, Oppo and a few more as well, are now letting you try the Android 15 beta. But remember if you do this, you do it completely at your own risk cuz.
It is still a basa, so the software is actually still not as reliable as it could be. We’Re going to have to wait a couple of months for this to be a little bit more stable and reliable, but just remember to back up your phone before you go ahead and install any beta on your phone. We’Ll have a look at some of the upgrades on Android 15 public beta 2 and then have a look at where OS 5 and have a look at Google, TV and Android auto as well. But you can have a look in the description below and find the time stamps to exactly where they will be in the video.
But let’s start with Android 15. One of those bigger changes that we’ve seen in beta 2 is something new that is called private space. Essentially, private space is exactly what it says it lets you create that new private space, where you can store apps that are more secure than just having them on your home screen. This private space then gets locked and can only be accessed through your Biometrics or by entering your pin and to set up a private space. It just means you need to go into the security and privacy part of the settings tap on private space, then that setup process will just require that authentication to ensure that only the primary user can create it and you’ll also have the option of linking a Google Account for easy, app downloads as well within that private space space after that is all set up. You will then see private space on the app draw, and it will just be marked as private, with a label and lock icon. What I think makes private space really interesting.
Is that actually any app that you use within that space is not recognized by the phone, so it doesn’t show up in any usage data, any statistics or anything once it’s in that private space, it’s completely locked away and no one else can have access to it. Except for you, sticking with privacy as Android 15 beta 2 seems to be about there’s now a new feature that is called theft, lock detection, and this means, if your phone is stolen and unlocked at the time it is stolen. When it happens, it will automatically be locked to keep your phone secure and you might be wondering how this is actually done. Well, it’s done through a couple of ways. So, firstly, if your phone is taken out of your hand – and it is already unlocked that accelerometer detects a jump or a snag from your hand, followed by a fast movement away from that phone’s location.
So, if someone’s on a bike or a car and takes your phone, it will know that is being stolen, that’s exactly when it will kick into action and secure your device by locking it automatically. I actually think this is a really nice feature and there’s also a number that you can call from a different phone. That will ask you for a pen to lock your phone again and when that feature, activates you’ll still be able to use, find my device to locate your phone. So this is an added security feature, I think, would be really cool.
It’D be interesting to see how this exactly works when it is taken out of your hand, but the fact that it is in there in Android 15 is a win. Next is live threat, detection and Google Play protect, will use on device AI to look and analyze. Like an app’s, behavioral signals related to sensitive permissions and how it interacts with other apps and if it looks like this app is actually acting.
Suspiciously you’ll get a notification about this and then that app will be sent to Google for further review. And if it’s found that the malicious behavior is confirmed, play protect will actually automatically disable that app on your phone there’s a few other cool features that are going to be added to Android 15 beta 2 as well, and one of them is to do with the Wallet what you’ll be able to do soon in the US is that you’ll be able to create a digital version of any pass that just contains text. So simply all you’d have to do is take a photo of your everyday passes. So if this is an event ticket, maybe it’s a library card or maybe it’s a gym membership – something like that and then you can create a digital version inside your Google Wallet for quick access just by taking a photo of it, which I think is really cool. One time passwords will now be hidden from that notification popup as well in Android 15 beta 2. This kind of goes hand inand with screen sharing protection as well, because those onetime passcodes will be hidden when you’re sharing your screen and things like your logins will be hidden as well, and your username credentials passwords credit card numbers. If you are sharing your screen and just like pixel’s other Android devices, now we’ll be able to select a certain app to screen share instead of doing the entire screen.
If you have a pixel fold or a pixel tablet, then there are some new large screen. Multitasking coming your way as well, and beta 2 gives you a better way to multitask on those larger screens. For example, users can now pin the task box on screen to quickly switch between apps or what you can do is actually save your favorite split screen, app combinations for quick access and there’s no official name yet for this from Google. But what we’ve seen from the screenshots, it’s called, save app P.
It means you can open up that app in the split screen view if you use two apps in split screen quite often, and a couple of quick other things is that you’ll now actually be able to choose in settings how you’re addressed by the system. So, for example, this could be used to change pronouns and how the system address its use. So what you do for this one is: you need to go into your settings, system, languages and input and system languages, and that is where you can choose how you’re addressed by the Android operating system and beta 2 also allows you to have custom vibrations for certain Apps, so it means that you know what notifications you’re getting coming through from a certain app with that be WhatsApp telegram slack, because you’ll have a different vibration for each one of those apps. If that’s something that you wanted to have Google also announced and released we OS 5 for developers, and we got to see a little preview what this might be, but sadly we won’t see it to our actual risks until the end of the year, but wos 5 Seems at the moment to have a really big focus on improving battery life and according to Google watch os5 devices with the same Hardware will use 20 % less battery than where os4 devices with the same Hardware, when tracking tasks such as running and actually think this Is really exciting any update that can come to a watch and give it more battery life for doing the exact same tasks. It’S right up my street. On top of that, once where OS finally arrives, Health Services will will support new data types for running.
So this includes things like ground contact Time, stride, length, vertical oscillation and vertical ratio, which I imagine means a lot to Runners to me doesn’t mean a lot, but I know that Runners are looking for things like this and there is updates to watch faces and I’ve Always thought the watch faces at the moment were lacking a little bit behind the competition, but now Google has announced new features in the watch face format, which essentially is the tool that is used to make watch faces. In short, this just means that we’re going to get better complications with things like goal, progress and weighted elements, weather forecasts it’s going to make the watch faes a little bit more exciting to use when, where os5 actually gets on our wrists. When it comes to Google TV there’s, some cool updates as well so Gemini is coming to Google TV and Android 14 for TV has just been announced. This will just bring updates like making the OS feel a bit snappier and more responsive, which is never a bad thing, and that will be really useful for older Google TVs.
There’S also going to be a couple of new energy saving modes as well, and actually there’ll be three new energy saving modes, and these are low energy mode, optimized energy mode and increased energy mode and picture and picture is coming as well, but Google said this is Only coming for qualified Android 14 TV models with Gemini coming to Google TV, I actually think this will be really useful, because if you go off and search an actor’s name at the moment, it will bring back. All those TV shows all those films that that actor is in, even if they only cameo in them for 5 minutes. So with the use of Gemini, it could say to you: hey here’s a show that they’re in, but they are actually only in it. For 5 minutes, so why would you waste your time watching it? It can give you more accurate descriptions as well of TV shows, and it could also bring translation to film and shows that aren’t in your native language.
But sadly, though, there is no news just yet on when we will see Gemini coming to Google TV, but this is something that you might want to keep your eye on. When we have a look at Android auto, there are more apps coming to Android, auto, like Macs and peacock, and Angry Birds, which apparently people still play. These will come to cards with Google bill in which is actually different to Android, auto, where you need to plug your phone in Google Cast, which we all know as chomecast is finally making its way to Android. Auto so you’ll be able to actually cast videos from your phone or tablet onto those car screens, but the idea of this is that, if you were to charge your car you will stop and you’re in a car park, then you can actually cast your videos over To that screen, but as soon as you start moving again, then that cast will just automatically stop and don’t get too excited about you being able to go off and use this as well, because unless you have a rivan vehicle, then there’s no way that you can Actually go and do this so it is coming, but sadly only to Riv vehicles and finally, the teased XR headset from Samsung and Google is still coming, Google said, but it would get its own event a little bit further down the road. So we still sadly know very little about this – see it’s a bit exciting, but we can’t talk about it. Cuz, we don’t know anything about it, but Google said that it would get its own bit of Limelight in an event a little bit further down the road, and that is everything from we OS Google, TV, Android, auto and, of course, Android 15 beta 2 and again, Like I mentioned, this is now open to more models of phone than it has been for a while, so you can now go and download it if you have an Oppo xiaomi, nothing phone OnePlus, but remember only download the beta. If you’re happy for your data to disappear or make sure you back it up because of course it is pre-released software, so it is not stable. Let us know in the comments below what do you think of Android 15 beta 2 and the other announcements alongside that as well.
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