Check out the list of all the Android 13 Features

Google announced Android 13 back in February this year. And, as it is with every major release, Google first rolls out the developer previews for Pixel phones. The developer previews were made available to the public in the months of February and March this year. As with every new release, one would expect to see a number of new features as well as design changes that make it stand out from the previous version, ie Android 12. Today, we will be taking a look at all the new features of Android 13 that have been released from developer preview 1 to date.

Now, Android 12 did come out with new features and designs, so you will see a few bits of the design being carried forward to Android 13. With Android 13 beta 1 made available to select Pixel devices, it will be interesting to take a look and see what new changes and features have been added. As and when a new release of Android 13 is being released, its features will be added here. So, let’s take a trip down to when the developer preview of Android 13 was released and see what features have been implemented into Android 13.

Everything That’s New in Android 13

We will be listing out the important and prominent features that were released in every version of Android 13 starting from the developer preview all the up to the latest available version.

New Features in Developer Preview 1

New Photo picker API

With Android 13, you no longer need to give permissions to an app when you want to share images and videos. If you want to share an image or video, the Photo picker will simply display the images and videos as a popup on top of the app’s screen. From here you can simply select the images and videos and share them with the app right away. In this way, the particular app will not be able to read or access your gallery whatsoever.

android 13 developer preview

Nearby Device WiFi Permission

All apps will now be able to connect to wifi networks that are nearby automatically without the need for any permissions for locations. This helps in improving user privacy by not having the need to grant location permissions in order to access wifi networks in a particular place.

Dynamic Colored App Icons

With Android 13 we get Material You on all App Icons. This new design style now lets you set the app icon colors to that of the colors from your wallpaper. It also lets you switch from choosing just dark mode icons or simply sticking with the stock colors of the app icons.

android 13 developer preview

Per-App Language Settings

Previously on older Android versions, once you set the particular language, it would be applied to each and every app that is installed on your device, provided the app had the particular support for the selected language. Now, Android 13 lets you set up a language for a particular app. This means that you can have different apps operating in different languages at the same time. A great feature for those who are multilingual.

Android 13 language feature
IMG: Esper

Faster Hyphenation

If you’ve ever had difficulty reading text that was wrapped out incorrectly whether in an app or even if it was from your notifications panel, you will know it can be a headache. However, with better and faster hyphenation on Android 13. It’s stated that the readability has been improved and increased in performance by 200%. The new hyphenation can now be added to your TextViews.

Android Updates via Google Play

Known as Project mainline, Google is now pushing forward for system updates to devices via the Google PlayStore. This means that you’ll be able to get the latest features on your device straight from Google itself. For example, the Photo Picker feature will also be rolling out to devices running Android 11. This feature will be rolled out via the Google Play Store itself. Even updates for various modules such as Bluetooth and Ultrawideband can be sent over to older Android devices via the Google Play Store.

Optimized support for Foldables, Tablets, and Chromebooks

With Android 13, developers will now be asked to make their apps compatible to work perfectly with large screen Android devices, The design of these apps is to be done in such a manner that the app should be able to run perfectly on almost any screen size. This means that you will now be able to use Android apps on your Android tablet that were not compatible earlier.

New Features in Developer Preview 2

Option to Allow Notifications

With Android 13, users now have more control over how an app accesses contents, your location, and now even your notifications. What this means is that you now have the power to allow or reject an app from displaying notifications. This feature will be available for devices on Android 13 and future versions of Android.

android 13 features
IMG: Esper

Downgrade App Permissions

Sometimes, there could be a few apps that might have requested permissions for some reason. Now, Android 13 lets you downgrade these permissions. This means that when the app no longer requires access to a particular module, you can simply deny the permissions thus having full control over your privacy.

Bluetooth LE Support

Finally, the support for Low Energy Bluetooth audio has been added to Android. With Bluetooth LE, you will now be able to share and broadcast audio to your friends and family and also subscribe to public broadcasts for different information. Bluetooth LE also tends to use less battery power and at the same time gives you high fidelity audio. A win-win situation both ways for those who use Bluetooth headsets for a long period of time.

MIDI 2.0 Support

You can now connect your devices to your Android device via the USB port. This means you can now connect your MIDI musical instruments to your Android and record your audio creations right away.

Android 13 Beta 1

With the developer previews coming to an end. Google has finally released the beta version of Android 13. As of now Android 13 beta 1 is available for Pixel devices. Other users can also flash the Android 13 GSI on their device. Here are the new features that can be seen with Android 13 Beta 1.

Android 13 Beta 1

Wider Media Access Permissions

Until Android 12, most of the media apps and file managers would simply request access to read the files on your device even if only music or video is required. The app would be able to access images, videos, and audio files at one time itself. Now with Android 13, the app will only be able to access a particular type of media file depending on the permissions you grant it. For example, if it’s an audio player, the app can only ask for access to your storage to read-only audio files. The app will not be able to read images and other media files. This prevents the app from reading other files on your device and thus increasing the privacy of your files.

New Media Player Progress Bar

When you have a media app playing in the background, you will usually see a mini player with basic controls in the notifications panel. With Android 12, the progress bar would be a simple straight line. But, with Android 13, you now get a wavy progress bar- something similar to how an audio spectrum wave looks like.

android 13 features

New Clipboard UI

When you copy any sort of text on the screen, you get a small popup at the bottom right corner of your screen. This popup will show you details like from what app the particular text has been copied and also the ability to edit the piece of text you have copied.

android 13 features
IMG: Esper

New Material You Color Options

Previously Material You had just 4 color options that you could apply to your device. With Android 13 Beta 1, there are now a total of color theme options that you can select and apply to your device. The majority of them are dual-tone color options.

android 13 features
IMG: Esper

Google Calendar App icon now displays the current date.

If you are someone that uses the Google Calendar app on android, you might notice that the app icon simply shows a 31 as the date. Now, with Android 13, the date on the app icon will be in tune with the actual date of the day.

Final Thoughts

These are all the new features that we have seen so far with Android 13. We do hope to see more new features be made available in future beta versions of Android 13. Do note that the 2022 Google I/O event is also scheduled for next month, so one can expect even more features to be announced during the event.

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Image Source: Esper

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Joshua D'souza

Enjoy games, 90's hip-hop, and tech. Loves exploring the infinite world of laptops and food. Every ready to provide assistance in anything that rocks his boat. Will gladly enjoy capturing memories through various lenses. Worked previously at PiunikaWeb as an author and researcher.

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