Android 17 beta 3 brings small changes that make a big difference

4 days ago 12

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New Delhi: Google officially rolled out its Android 17 beta 3 for the eligible Pixel devices. This latest beta upgrade brings some changes and improvements, including bubbles for some applications, a redesigned screen recording toolbar, hidden home screen application labels, and much more. Android 17 beta 3 upgrade is now available for download.

Now, let’s see several changes and improvements that this upgrade brings for the Pixel devices.

Bubbles

Applications beyond Messenger can use the bubble function; the Messenger application has already offered this, as tapping the floating bubble icon opens a picture-in-picture window for messages. Highlighted, Bubbles is the windowing mode separate from messaging bubbles.

Redesigned screen recording toolbar

The screen recording toolbar has been redesigned, and users can now select only the specific application to be recorded or the entire screen.

Hidden application labels on the home screen

Android now offers the user the setting to hide application names on the home screen workspace, accessible through the system customization and wallpaper picker settings.

Photo picker customization

The users can now modify the grid view aspect ratio of the photo picker. The users can also switch from the default 1:1 square to a 9:16 portrait display, enabling better UI integration.

RAW14 image format

Professional camera applications can now capture 14-bit per pixel RAW images.

Vendor-defined camera extensions

Hardware partners can now also define custom camera extension modes.

Bluetooth LE audio hearing aids

A latest device category enables the application to distinguish hearing aids from generic LE Audio headsets by allowing tailored UI iconography.

Granular hearing aid audio routing

The user can independently route system sounds to either connected hearing aids or the device speaker. This is handled at the system level, and it also requires no API changes.

Extended HE-AAC software encoder

A latest system offered encoder supports high and low bitrates for significantly better audio in low-bandwidth conditions, including the mandatory support for the loudness metadata to ensure consistent volume.

Widget support on external displays

Improved visual consistency for widgets across the different pixel densities. It will now accept complex units, and widgets can retrieve specific DisplayMetrics.

Desktop Interactive Picture-in-Picture

Applications can request to be moved to the pinned windowing layer during desktop mode. These pinned windows remain interactive and always on top.

Discrete Password Visibility

Show password settings are now split between touch inputs and physical keyboards. Standard framework components respect this automatically; custom fields should migrate to the ShowSecretsSetting API.

Eligible Pixel device to get this upgrade