Android OS introduced a feature a few years ago that let you examine pending notifications from an app by long-tapping on its icon from the app drawer or home screen. You could then choose to view the previous notifications or open the most recent one directly. But with Android 14, this option is no longer available since you can only view shortcuts to two specific app functionalities when you press on an icon, along with the ability to remove the icon from the home screen and access its system settings. This modification somewhat changes how users manage and read their notifications, while it may not seem like a big deal at first.
In the past, you could quickly check notifications for a particular app straight from the home screen if your notification tray was overflowing with alerts. This feature was especially helpful to people who want to handle their notifications app by app and receive a lot of them. On Android 14, tapping on an icon with a long touch just displays the shortcuts for the app, along with App Info, Pause app, and widgets. Actually, Google changed it so that those three shortcuts show up as a whole list at the top rather than being combined together now that notifications aren’t shown there. Presumably, the Android team chose to eliminate notifications.
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Rather than being incorporated into a floating list with notifications, the new options—app details, Pause app, and widgets—are all shown as a whole list. Reports from the source 9to5Google state that Google implemented this change during the Android 14 Beta program, stating that it was expected behavior and that it would not be undone. Although Google has not given a clear explanation for this change, users’ comments have indicated that several people have asked for the notification preview option to be brought back. In spite of this, Google might remain with the updated features in light of usage trends and statistics.
Google acknowledged that this notification functionality was purposefully removed during the Android 14 Beta Program and that there is no intention to fix it. It doesn’t look like there will be any big changes to Android 14’s long-press menu, which is now mostly centered on shortcuts and app information. While consumers will need to adjust to this new notification management system on Android smartphones, the restoration of the notification feature could not cause too much disruption.
