Google has outlined its vision for this year’s major Android update, which looks set to continue many of the customization and privacy initiatives the search giant launched with last year’s Android 12. Its customizable Material You color schemes will now be available as predefined themes and are also available. so it expands to cover third-party application icons and the media player. There are also new security features, including a special privacy and security menu.
The direction isn’t likely to come as a surprise to anyone keeping up with the early beta versions of Android 13. But today’s announcements, made to coincide with the search giant’s annual Google I / O developer conference, see the company set out your overall vision for this year’s major Android update. The search giant is releasing the second public beta version of Android 13 today to match the announcements.
After last year’s theme customization feature, Android can now match its color scheme to that of your phone’s wallpaper. This year, the media controls are also receiving a similar overhaul in the Material You style and will be able to extract colors from the cover of the album of music that is being played. Another new feature for those who don’t want or need the theme of their phone to match exactly their wallpaper is a series of optional preset color schemes to choose from.
Pre-made color options Material You on Android 13. Image: Google
Material You theme themes also come with third-party app icons, which appeared in the first Android 13 developer preview in February. “This was a bit of a missing piece for us in the last issue,” explains Google’s vice president of product management, Samir Samat. “It felt like everything in the system user interface got this nice attitude towards Material You, except for the icons. For us, it always felt like unfinished business. ” The new application icon options will come first on Pixel devices and will only work with supported applications.
Google Messages’ RCS support will also be greatly improved later this year with the release of end-to-end beta encryption for group chats, a feature currently only available in one-to-one RCS chats in Google Messages. The search giant says the standard, which aims to inherit ancient SMS and MMS protocols, is now available to more than 500 million Google Messages users worldwide.
“It always felt like unfinished business for us.”
As we’ve seen from its beta versions, Android 13 also places more restrictions on personal data and phone features that apps can use by default. Apps will soon need permission to even send notifications first, and there’s a new photo picker that lets you restrict the photos and videos the app has access to, instead of giving you permission to view your entire library. The new permissions will also restrict apps from accessing Photos and Videos or Music and Audio files, not all file types.
A new security and privacy settings page will be added later this year to gather all your critical data privacy information in one place. It is designed to encourage Android users to deal with any security issues that may arise.
Android 13 will allow you to set the language based on application by application. Image: Google
Far from the Android phones themselves, Google also emphasizes the work it does on interconnecting with other devices. It plans to add quick pairing support for Matter’s entry-level smart home standard this fall to make using your Android phone quick and easy to add supported smart home devices to your network. Support for the new energy-efficient Bluetooth LE Audio standard is also on the way in Android 13.
One last feature worth mentioning: Android 13 will allow users to set system languages based on an application, a feature that Samat says is useful for multilingual users who rely on different languages in different situations. “If you use a social media app, you can use one language. But if you bank, you can use another language, ”he explains.
After the chaotic launch of Android 12, it may be reassuring to see that Google’s focus this year is on improvement, not the Android revolution. There is no big change in direction here, just a constant series of tweaks and improvements to existing Android initiatives.
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