When it comes to lock screen functionality, a certain balance needs to be achieved. For security and other reasons, you can’t give too much away. But being able to perform quick functions without the hassle of unlocking your phone and navigating to an app is also very convenient.
Google seems to have noticed this and is preparing to let users jot down notes using Google Keep directly from the lock screen in Android 14. your brain. And if that sounds familiar, it’s because Samsung offers the same feature on its phone Samsung Note and its S Pen stylus.
In fact, if you’re someone who pairs your Android device with one of the best Apple Pencil alternatives, you should also be able to click the action button on your compatible model and launch Google Keep that way. .
To use the Notes app on Android 14’s lock screen, you must first set it as the “default Notes app”. Android Authority reports that only version 5.23.482.04 of Google Keep meets the two criteria needed to meet this requirement. However, some of the best note-taking apps will soon be eligible for this as well.
An additional benefit of being able to select Keep as your “default notes app” is that you now have access to a new API that allows users to take a screenshot of the current window and insert it into a note. This was previously blocked from third-party apps due to privacy concerns, so the new API now takes screenshots in the system UI and shares them with the default note-taking app.
Finally, each time a new note is retrieved from the lock screen, Keep allows the user to decide whether to create it as a new note or append it to an existing note.
The feature is not yet available to the public, unless you enable it in the developer menu on Pixel tablets running Android 14, but it’s likely to be available to the public sooner rather than later.
Google announced Android 14 on October 4, 2023, and it’s currently rolling out to all users with Pixel 4a 5G or newer. All Android smartphones released next year will use 14 out of the box, but existing non-Google smartphones are currently getting the update. Samsung’s OneUI 6 update was rolled out to eligible phones from November 13 to December 1, and OnePlus phones got the Oxygen OS 14 version Android update from November 16, but globally It wasn’t at the same time. Motorola and Asus have remained silent, but plan to send updates by early next year at the latest.
Meanwhile, in our Android 14 review, we covered all the best new features here.