Android 13 first look: Your Android phone is set to get a lot more EXCITING!

Android 13 is already here! The world hasn’t warmed up to Android 12 yet and Google is already here with the first Developer Preview of Android 13. Despite it being the very first preview, Google has packed in enough new features to make Android 12 look like a relic of the past. Visually, the Material You theme engine has been updated while internally, there are some big changes to make the Android experience more secure.

As with all Developer Preview releases, this build of Android 13 is limited to app developers and could be extremely unstable. Hence, you should only put in a phone that you don’t use as your daily driver.

Since we spoke of phones, Android 13 Developer Preview can be downloaded and tested on Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 4a, Pixel 4XL, and Pixel 4. If you don’t have any of these devices, you can run the developer Preview on Android Emulator on experience it. Google hints a final stable release of Android 13 after August, if things go well in the development cycle

Android 13: What’s new this time

Turns out, there are a lot of new features making it to Android 13 this year.

Photo Picker:

A few years ago, Apple enhanced privacy on iOS by letting you provide an app access to the photos that you only want. For example, you want your food deliver app to only have access to food photos instead of the entire gallery. Photo Picker is exactly the same feature, allowing Android users to give an app permission to access only those photos that you want it to. The app will not gain access to view other media files on your phone, thus enhancing privacy.

Nearby device permission for Wi-Fi: 

Android 13 will now ask apps to take permission for connecting to a device over Wi-Fi.

Custom Quick Settings tiles: 

Android 13 will allow you now place a function shortcut to the Quick Settings section in Notifications Shade, the place where you manage your Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, brightness levels and so on. Hence, it could be possible for you to turn off your active status on Facebook or Instagram by simply tapping a button on the Quick Settings section, if these apps bring such a feature.

Update theme engine:

Android 13 will now allow non-Google apps to take advantage of the Material You dynamic colour engine. Hence, you can now have your WhatsApp icon follow the colour theme of your wallpaper, just like other Google apps.

Per-app language:

 Apps in Android 13 can now have separate languages from the system language with causing issues to compatibility and underlying codes.

Android updates via Google Play:

Google says that it is working to deliver new Android feature via Google Play to Android 13 and older Android versions, instead of waiting for a big system update. Hence, feature like the Photo Picker can be delivered to Android 11 devices via Google Play updates. This will make updating a wide variety of Android phones quickly and easily.