Google rolled outAndroid 14 on its flagship phones in early October. The rest of the Android family, fromSamsung’s leading phonesto Motorola, will receive the most anticipated upgrade in the upcoming days (or months). So, to get ready forwhat Android 14 has in store, we go over some of the best accessibility features Android 14 has to offer.
5 Android 14 settings you’ll want to change immediately
From your lock screen to new gestures, you need to change these five things after upgrading your smartphone
Android 14 increases font size to 200% with non-linear font scaling
Android 13 made rounds by improving readability. Previously, you could scale the text size up to 130%. In Android 14, you can get up to 200%, which can be accessed by the Quick Setting panel. To take this feature to another level, Android 14 adds smart scaling. Smart scaling ensures all text is scaled non-linearly. That means giant headers don’t suddenly grow to quadruple the size from your specified scaling settings. The smaller body of text still scales, but the giant header doesn’t. These improvements allow you to view a web page more consistently without layout problems.
To activate the font size increase to 200%, visit your device’s settings:
you may also change the font size by visiting the Quick Settings.
Android 14 brings an improved magnification experience
Android 13 introduced a shortcut feature that allows zooming in by pinching a section of your screen with two fingers. Android 14 builds on this feature by bringing more customization to the magnifier by visiting theMagnifier Settingspanel.
You can change the size of the magnifier, how much of the screen is captured by the magnifier, and access a new setting, Keep on when switching app, which keeps the magnifier turned on when swapping apps. This adds a more seamless transition between apps and web pages.
Android 14 adds a revamped contrast selector in Developer options
Android 13 was an important update for accessibility, improving the display and text. Android 14 takes this a step further. You can use a contrast slider to adjust the contrast of your device with three options: Standard, Medium, and High. With these additional options in Android’s toolkit, you can tone down the overly colorful Material You theme.
To access the contrast selector, turn on Developer Mode and visitDeveloper optionsin your device settings.
Android 14 releases a dedicated hearing aid settings page and shortcut
Android 14 has a new dedicated accessibility page for hearing aids. On this page, you can pair and manage your hearing aids, cochlear implants, and other amplification devices. If you don’t want to navigate the accessibility page to get to these options, toggle on a shortcut to manage these paired devices.
Hearing aid compatibilityactivates two modes to improve audio and sound for compatible hearing hardware. Set your hearing device toM, or acoustic coupling mode, orT, or telecoil (inductive) coupling mode, before turning on the Hearing aid compatibilitymode.
Android 14 includes flash notifications support
Android 14 lets you set up flash notifications, including twelve color options for screen flashing. This feature gives you a custom-made visual cue of when a notification arrives or when an alarm sounds. If you have sensitivity to flashing lights, you may prefer to leave this feature alone.
You have two options that can be toggled on for flash notifications: camera flash (not available on all devices), which uses your rear camera to blink twice when a notification is sent through, and screen flash, which has a transparent color layer that fills your screen (when a notification occurs).
To turn on flash notifications, follow these steps:
You can also access flash notifications viaNotificationsfrom your device’s settings.
You can select twelve color options for your flash notifications. TapPreviewto see how the color overlays on your screen.
After setting up camera flash and screen flash, the camera, screen, or both continue to flash until you take action. The flash stops when you answer an incoming call, press snooze, or dismiss your alarm. For notifications, the device only flashes a few times. Flash notifications continue to work in silent mode and follow yourdo not disturbmode settings.
Android 14 implements gendered language user recognition
Android 14 offers some nifty app features for gendered languages. Android 14 introduces the Grammatical Inflection API, designed to fix gender language recognition. Previously, languages such as German and French had the default addressee set as masculine. However, that doesn’t work if the user is female. To get around this issue, Android 14 employs Grammatical Inflection API. The API correctly reflects a user’s grammatical gender without refactoring the entire app.
Android 14 adds regional preferences for temperature and the first day of the week
Setting up regional preferencesis one of our favorite additions to Android 14. You can customize regional preferences to change the temperature units and customize the first day of the week to overwrite an app’s default setting. Apps that support regional preferences pull this data and replace the default settings (in the app). So, you no longer need to manually convert temperature units (from Fahrenheit to Celsius) while navigating through an app.
Accessibility is the future of mobile
As more options support users with low vision and hearing impairments, Android brings more quality-of-life updates. Google also has plans to implementmore accessibility with its core apps. Other top manufacturers, like Apple and Samsung, are always finding new ways to make their mobile devices more accessible. The future of accessibility on mobile seems brighter for people with disabilities. It’s about time that software accessibility takes center stage.
