Android is a global operating system in the truest sense, with users enjoying its conveniences in almost every corner of the world. Along with Google, app developers share the responsibility of ensuring the user experience is inclusive across all regions and their peoples. Apps usually default to using the system language, but Android 13 introduced a feature allowing per-app language settings. Android 14 looks like it wants to take things a step further, allowing users to set even more regional preferences (like language) without hopping into every app’s settings menu.
Android 13’s option was a boon for multilingual users, saving them from swiping through non-standard in-app settings pages, just to change the language. This way, you could be an English speaker using Twitter in French. But what if you care about more than just the language — if you’re an American who moved to, say, India, you may prefer using US English, but want to change a few things like your temperature units to be in Celsius instead of Fahrenheit. Writing for XDA, Mishaal Rahman reports Android 14 makes provisions for that.
Though currently concealed behind a flag, Android 14 DP1 includes a hidden system settings page called Regional Preferences. When enabled, it allows setting up system-wide preferences for temperature units, calendar format, first day of the week, and number system. With this setting in effect, apps won’t have to ask for nor make presumptions about your preferences.
That said, the implementation doesn’t seem bulletproof just yet. The settings page clearly disclaims that apps will use your regional preferences “where possible.” We also wonder if we'll eventually see more options here. All the critical bases are covered, but nice-to-have choices like Kelvin for absolute temperature aren’t available.
- Temperature: Celsius and Fahrenheit
- Calendar: Chinese, Dangi, Hebrew, Indian National Calendar, Islamic, and Persian
- First day of the week: Sunday, Monday, or any other day of the week (if you're wild like that)
- Number system: Western or local (depending on where your device is)
In all the above, you still have an option to use the app default, so the regional preferences won’t override the app settings. It will be wonderful if Google can add other important region-specific options to the list, like units of length, weight, and speed. Hopefully, we get those by the time Android 14 rolls out in the stable channel later this year.