The new Photo Picker feature is technically available on devices running Android versions as old as Android 4.4, but there’s a good chance you haven’t seen it yet. That’s because the backported version currently requires developers to do some extra work to support it.
There are two versions of the Photo Picker: the system version and the GMS version. The system version is only available on Android 11+ and is provided through a Project Mainline module. The GMS version is provided through Google Play Services for older Android versions.
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The problem is that the system Photo Picker responds to a different intent than the GMS Photo Picker. Fortunately, androidx.activity will soon handle everything for developers. It’ll check whether the system or GMS Photo Picker is available and then invoke the correct intent.