It should not come as a surprise that Android is the biggest operating system in the world with 2.5 billion smartphones around the globe running this OS and every year, Google delivers new updates that improve over an already impressive and stable OS. With that said, the first developer preview of Android 13 is now available, and it does bring along a number of changes that are going to benefit the developers and it also introduces new improvements to privacy, Material You, language controls, and more.
Android 13 Will Focus More on Under the Hood Changes Rather Than a Major Visual Overhaul
Now, before you take out your Pixel device, one thing that I would let you know is that this is still a developer preview and it is intended for developers only. The reason here is simple, Google wants the developers to test out the new features and ensure that their apps are working on the latest updates as they are supposed to. The OS is not made for daily use and will be a lot of bugs. If bugs are not a problem, you can go ahead and try the preview out.
Over the course of the next couple of months, Google is going to start getting feedback from the developers and working on the update.
With that said, Android 13 developer preview 1 does bring notable features that are listed below.
- New privacy features: The OS now has a new system photo picker that allows the users to share specific images and videos with apps and new Wi-Fi permission which also looks to reduce the location data usage.
- Themed icons: The Material You design already includes dynamic app icons but with Android 13, this will be extended to all the app icons and will let developers have icons that will respond to the setup that the user has made.
- Better language controls: Android 13 will also introduce a new API that is going to help developers identify the preferred language of the users and will help the user experience.
- Developer tools: Android 13 developer preview 1 is the first step in refreshing Android's Core Libraries so it can support Java 11. Several of the opt-in features also have their toggles, allowing developers to easily understand how these changes affect their apps.
Of course, the Android 13 developer preview 1 also has a lot of other changes but the phones mentioned above are the most notable ones. You can expect to see more Android 13 developer previews dropping in the coming months with the final release going official later this year.
About the author: I have been tinkering with Android devices ever since the early days of the HTC Desire. Over time, I have grown a fondness for the ecosystem and now I cannot live without it. Although some might believe that I have sold my soul to Android, but I believe it is not the case. You can find me writing tutorials and posting guides on a number of different smartphones. When I am not writing here, I am wasting myself away in books, journals, or on Steam.
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