Android 13 Developer Preview Released: What’s New?
Google has started rolling out the first Android 13 developer preview (DP1) to Pixel users with mentions of “Tiramisu” as the Android 13 codename. While the company stopped giving dessert names to its Android builds since Android 10, it did use them to refer their OS internally.
However, this time Google mentions the dessert name of its upcoming Android 13 OS in the settings menu. And if you have been following the developments behind Android 13, you’d know that this has been rumored for a while now.
As for the new Android 13 features, Google aims to bring themed app icons for all apps that would allow them, and not just Google’s own apps, to adopt the color scheme of a user’s wallpaper and system theme. The company also tweaked a few things about how permissions and security are handled by Android. Moreover, there is a new photo picker that allows users to share images and videos without the app needing permission to see all the photos and videos in a user’s gallery.
Plus, there is a new Wi-Fi permission feature that will allow apps to connect to Wi-Fi points without needing location permissions, and more such small changes.
Other than this, there are a few tiny tidbits that one can find in the first developer preview of Android 13. Android Central’s Alex Dobie discovered a Camera Obfuscator app that can remove the metadata of an image before sharing it with someone. Heh. First dev preview of Android 13 Tiramisu includes Google’s internal Camera Obfuscator app. Acts as a share target to strip out EXIF data before sharing on to other apps (for when @lockheimer wants to tweet photos from his Pixel 7) pic.twitter.com/xC7DDAtM8v— Alex Dobie (@alexdobie) February 10, 2022
Furthermore, Android 13 will introduce language preferences for individual apps, more seamless Android updates via Google Play instead of a new OS version or security patch, better optimization for large-screen devices and foldables, and loads more. We expect more details about Android 13 to surface online as developers continue to dig deep into the first developer preview.
Google aims to push only two developer builds for Android 13 before moving onto the beta phase. Thus, users can expect the stable version of the next-gen Android OS to release sometime in the latter half of the year. You can check out the release timeline (attached below) provided by Google right here.
Also, be sure to stay tuned for more information about more Android 13 features and other tidbits, Until then, check our Android 13 round-up story right here for additional details.
