Google’s launch dates for new Android versions have been all over the place in the past few years. Android 11 came out in September, 12 didn’t become official until October, and now we are getting Android 13 as early as August.
As always, the rollout will start with Google’s own Pixel devices and other OEMs including Samsung, Xiaomi, Oppo, Vivo, OnePlus, Motorola “and more” will get the update “later this year”. Of course, it also depends on how fast these companies release updates around the world.
Android 13 is only a minor upgrade over Android 12. In terms of appearance, Android’s iconic Material You theme will now support more icons from third-party apps and the media playback widget will dynamically change colors based on the music you’re listening to. You can also assign different languages to different apps and Bedtime mode is getting dark mode as well as wallpaper dimming.
As for privacy, apps will no longer be able to access your entire media gallery when they only need to share one item from it. Your sensitive clipboard history, such as phone numbers, emails, or login details, will automatically get cleared “after a period of time”. Apps will now have to ask you before sending notifications as well.
Spatial Audio and Bluetooth LE Audio are now officially supported, but these will only work with accessories that can work with it. This should allow for lower latency Bluetooth connections, enhanced audio, and audio broadcasting to multiple devices at the same time.
The new taskbar will let you see all your apps at a glance and you can easily drag and drop apps into the split-screen mode, similar to Galaxy Z Fold 4’s new taskbar. Android tablets will have palm rejection support to avoid accidental touches when you are using a stylus.
Android 13 will “soon” let you copy and paste text between different Android devices on the same account. You will also be able to connect your messaging apps to other devices soon, so you can reply to your messages from a laptop or PC.
As mentioned earlier, Android 13 is only launching for Google Pixel phones for now and should become available on other devices later this year.
