Google has formally announced the backported version of the Photo Picker (provided through Play Services)! It’s available on all Android 4.4+ devices with GMS, meaning the new photo picker experience is available on nearly all Android devices!
Developers using the ActivityX library won’t have to worry about handling calls to the GMS (Android 4.4+) versus the framework (Android 11+) Photo Picker.
Google also says that the GET_CONTENT takeover rollout will resume in the coming months. This change makes the Photo Picker appear in apps that invoke the system file picker using the GET_CONTENT intent. This change was briefly rolled out a few months back but was halted.
Also, the blog post reiterates that the Photo Picker will “seamlessly support cloud storage providers like Google Photos”. Google Photos support was announced at I/O 2022, and with v6.30, the feature seems nearly ready to launch.