StableAndroid 14is still a long while away, but avid tinkerers are already finding tons of new features in the pre-release versions that are out right now, with Android 14 Developer Preview 2 being the latest. According to new findings, we might soon be able to set two independent live wallpapers on our devices: one for the lock screen and another for the home screen.
The way this new potential option was found isn’t 100% straight forward.XDA discovered code changesrelated to live wallpapers in the Android 13 QPR2 beta, which was released last week. These were pointing to an option allowing you to set an “independent lock screen live wallpaper.” However, further tweaks made clear that the option is just a stub in Android 13, which is always supposed to return false when an app asks to set independent lock screen and home screen wallpapers.
Left: Android 13 stable. Right: Android 14 DP2
Matters are different on Android 14 DP2, though. Here, it’s possible to override the disabled setting relating to live wallpapers, and it becomes clear that the Pixels’ Wallpaper & style app is capable of displaying the option to set independent live wallpaper options. While XDA was able to get the UI for this activated, it looks like it’s still not possible to set independent wallpapers as of now. Even when selecting only one option, a live wallpaper is still applied to both the home and the lock screen.
XDA speculates that the feature is primarily meant for the upcomingGoogle Pixel Tablet, which will double as a smart home display when docked to its magnetic stand. Given that Google’s Nest Hub displays also show live wallpapers with the date and time and a collection of different photos, it would make sense to add this option to the Pixel Tablet as well when it’s docked. We can thus only hope that this feature is also coming to other Android devices, including the Pixel phones.
