Google has announced Android 13, its next major software release. Here’s what it’s expected to bring.
Google’s Android 13 is finally here after months of testing. It’s a pretty small update that sees Google building on what it started with Android 12 and 12L. Material You gets more colorful with additional customization features, and Google plans on expanding icon theming beyond the small selection of Google apps currently supported. The company also highlights privacy and security features in Android 13, and there’s a lot of building upon Android’s bigger-screen ambitions in foldables and tablets.
Finally, people with Chromebooks will see some Apple-like cross-device functionality that allows you to stream messaging apps to the big screen. This comes in addition to other Chrome OS features like a shared clipboard and the flexible Phone Hub.
It’s a small update but a very refined one. Here’s everything you need to know about Android 13.
Google is building on what it started with Android 12 and 12L. Material You gets more colorful with additional customization features, and Google plans on expanding theming beyond the selection of Google apps. The company also highlights privacy and security features in Android 13, and there’s a lot of building upon Android’s bigger-screen ambitions in foldables and tablets.
Google released the first Android 13 Developer Preview in February, with the second arriving in March. In April, Google opened up Android 13 to the general public with the first Beta release and has released two more through June. The platform reached stability with the third Beta update, and the program ran through July with the final release of Android 13 debuting first on Pixels shortly after. Samsung and Oppo will be rolling out their updates later, and Google promises other brands like Asus, HMD (Nokia phones), iQOO, Motorola, OnePlus, Oppo, Realme, Sharp, Sony, Tecno, Vivo, Xiaomi, and more will be joining the party later in the year.
Google will now build support for braille displays into Android. Braille displays are devices that allow people who are vision impaired to interact with computers and read text that would typically appear on-screen. They can be used on computers, phones, and other devices, as well as connect through Bluetooth or USB.
Previously, vision-impaired users had to make use of a BrailleBack app downloaded from the Google Play Store to interact with them, but Google is changing that with Android 13. The feature will go live in Android 13 Beta 3.
Material You debuted with Android 12 as Google’s own kinda-sorta enhanced customization feature for Android that pulls in colors from your wallpaper to theme your apps and your phone’s interface. It’s available now on Google Pixels and some other Android 12 phones, while Google is working on making it widely available to all devices running Android 12L and later. With Android 13, Google will allow users to change how those colors show up. Right now, Material You is very pastel. While that’s to some people’s taste, not everyone is down with that look. It also gets a little boring, especially when Android 11 counterintuitively had a much larger, immediately available pool of colors to choose from.
With Android 13, Google is enhancing the color hues with four new options. Material You will still pick colors from your wallpaper, but how it displays them will be up to you — somewhat. The current options are Tonal Spot, Vibrant, Expressive, and Spiritz, but you won’t see them named as that; you’ll simply see more options. When using an Android 13 phone, the number of available Material You colors has ballooned from five to 11, setting the stage for enhanced customization when this hits your phone.
