Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

It’s already April and we’ve been making steady progress refining the features and stability of Android 13, building around our core themes of privacy and security, developer productivity, as well as tablet and large screen support. Today we’re moving into the next phase of our cycle and releasing the first Beta of Android 13.

For developers, there’s a lot to explore in Android 13, from privacy features like the new notification permission and photo picker, to APIs that help you build great experiences, like themed app icons, quick settings tile placement, and per-app language support, as well as capabilities like Bluetooth LE audio and MIDI 2.0 over USB. In Beta 1, we’ve added new permissions for more granular access to media files, improved audio routing APIs, and more. We’ll have more to share at Google I/O, coming up on May 11-12, so please save the date!

We’re inviting you to give Beta 1 a try as we welcome more early adopters to give us feedback on this release. You can try Android 13 Beta 1 today on supported Pixel devices by enrolling here to get the update over-the-air. If you’re already running a developer preview of Android 13, your device will automatically get this and future updates over the air. As always, downloads for Pixel and the Android Emulator are also available. Visit the Android 13 developer site for details on how to get started developing and testing your app.

What’s new in Beta 1?

We’re continuing to focus on privacy and security, while giving you new APIs to help you build great experiences for your users. Beta 1 includes the latest updates to features we announced earlier, like the new notification permission, photo picker, themed app icons, improved localization and language support, and more. Beta 1 also introduces a small number of new features, so give these a try and let us know what you think!

More granular permissions for media file access - Previously, when an app wanted to read shared media files in local storage, it needed to request the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission, which gave access to all types of media files. To bring more transparency and control to users, we’re introducing a new set of permissions with more granular scope for accessing shared media files.

With the new permissions, apps now request access to a specific type of file in shared storage:

• READ_MEDIA_IMAGES (for images and photos)
• READ_MEDIA_VIDEO (for videos)
• READ_MEDIA_AUDIO (for audio files)

When the permissions are granted by the user, apps will have read access to the respective media file types. To simplify the experience for users, If an app requests READ_MEDIA_IMAGE and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO at the same time, the system displays a single dialog for granting both permissions. If your app accesses shared media files, you’ll need to migrate to the new permissions when your app targets Android 13. More here.

Better error reporting in Keystore and KeyMint - For apps that generate keys, Keystore and KeyMint now provide more detailed and accurate error indicators. We’ve added an exception class hierarchy under java.security.ProviderException, with Android-specific exceptions that include Keystore/KeyMint error codes, and whether the error is retryable. You can also modify the methods for key generation, signing, and encryption to throw the new exceptions. The improved error reporting should now give you what you need to retry key generation.

Anticipatory audio routing - To help media apps identify how their audio is going to be routed, we’ve added new audio route APIs in the AudioManager class. The new getAudioDevicesForAttributes() API allows you to retrieve a list of devices that may be used to play the specified audio, and we added the getDirectProfilesForAttributes() API to help you understand whether your audio stream can be played directly. Use these new APIs to determine the best AudioFormat to use for your audio track.

App compatibility

If you haven’t tested your app for compatibility with Android 13 yet, now is the time to do it! With Android 13 now in Beta, we’re opening up access to early-adopter users as well as developers. This means that in the weeks ahead, you can expect more users to be trying your app on Android 13 and raising any issues that they find.

To test for compatibility, install your published app from Google Play or other source on a device or emulator running Android 13 Beta and work through all of the app’s flows. Review the behavior changes to focus your testing. After you’ve resolved any issues, publish an update as soon as possible.

With Beta we’re getting closer to Platform Stability in June 2022. Starting then, app-facing system behaviors, SDK/NDK APIs, and non-SDK lists will be finalized. At that time, you should finish up your final compatibility testing and release a fully compatible version of your app, SDK, or library. More on the timeline for developers is here.

Get started with Android 13!

Today’s Beta release has everything you need to try the Android 13 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. Just enroll any supported Pixel device here to get this and future Android 13 Beta and feature drop Beta updates over-the-air. If you’ve already installed a developer preview build, you’ll automatically get these updates. To get started developing, set up the SDK.

For even broader testing on supported devices, try Android 13 Beta on Android GSI images, and if you don’t have a device you can test on the Android Emulator -- just download the latest emulator system images via the SDK Manager in Android Studio.

For complete details on how to get the Beta, visit the Android 13 developer site.

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Last month, we released the first developer preview of Android 13, built around our core themes of privacy and security, developer productivity, as well as tablets and large screen support. Today we’re sharing Android 13 Developer Preview 2 with more new features and changes for you to try in your apps. Your input helps us make Android a better platform for developers and users, so let us know what you think!

Today’s release also comes on the heels of the 12L feature drop moving to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) last week, helping you better take advantage of the over 250+ million large screen Android devices. And to dive into Android 13, tablets, as well as our developer productivity investments in Jetpack Compose, check out the latest episode of #TheAndroidShow.

12L feature drop, now in AOSP

Before jumping into Developer Preview 2, let’s take a look at the other news from last week: we’ve officially released the 12L feature drop to AOSP and it’s rolling out to all supported Pixel devices over the next few weeks. 12L makes Android 12 even better on tablets, and includes updates like a new taskbar that lets users instantly drag and drop apps into split-screen mode, new large-screen layouts in the notification shade and lockscreen, and improved compatibility modes for apps. You can read more here.

Starting later this year, 12L will be available in planned updates on tablets and foldables from Samsung, Lenovo, and Microsoft, so now is the time to make sure your apps are ready. We highly recommend testing your apps in split-screen mode with windows of various sizes, trying it in different orientations, and checking the new compatibility mode changes if they apply. You can read more about 12L for developers here.

And the best part: the large screen features in 12L are foundational in Android 13, so you can develop and test on Android 13 knowing that you’re also covering your bases for tablets running Android 12L. We see large screens as a key surface for the future of Android, and we’re continuing to invest to give you the tools you need to build great experiences for tablets, Chromebooks, and foldables. You can learn more about how to get started optimizing for large screens, and make sure to check out our large screens developer resources.

Let’s dive into what’s new in today’s Developer Preview 2 of Android 13.

Privacy and user trust

People want an OS and apps that they can trust with their most personal and sensitive information and the resources on their devices. Privacy and user trust are core to Android’s product principles, and in Android 13 we’re continuing to focus on building a responsible and high quality platform for all by providing a safer environment on the device and more controls to the user. Here’s what’s new in Developer Preview 2.

Notification permission - To help users focus on the notifications that are most important to them, Android 13 introduces a new runtime permission for sending notifications from an app: POST_NOTIFICATIONS. Apps targeting Android 13 will now need to request the notification permission from the user before posting notifications. For apps targeting Android 12 or lower, the system will handle the upgrade flow on your behalf. The flow will continue to be fine tuned. To provide more context and control for your users, we encourage you to target Android 13 as early as possible and request the notification permission in your app. More here.

Notification permission dialog in Android 13.

Developer downgradable permissions - Some apps may no longer require certain permissions which were previously granted by the user to enable a specific feature, or retain a sensitive permission from an older Android version. In Android 13, we’re providing a new API to let your app protect user privacy by downgrading previously granted runtime permissions.

Safer exporting of context-registered receivers - In Android 12 we required developers to declare the exportability of manifest-declared Intent receivers. In Android 13 we’re asking you to do the same for context-registered receivers as well, by adding either the RECEIVER_EXPORTED or RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED flag when registering receivers for non-system sources. This will help ensure that receivers aren’t available for other applications to send broadcasts to unless desired. While not required in Android 13, we recommend declaring exportability as a step toward securing your app.

Developer productivity

In Android 13 we’re working to give you more tools to help you deliver a polished experience and better performance for users. Here are some of the updates in today’s release.

Improved Japanese text wrapping - TextViews can now wrap text by Bunsetsu (the smallest unit of words that sounds natural) or phrases -- instead of by character -- for more polished and readable Japanese applications. You can take advantage of this wrapping by using android:lineBreakWordStyle="phrase" with TextViews.

Japanese text wrapping with phrase style enabled (bottom) and without (top).

Improved line heights for non-latin scripts - Android 13 improves the display of non-Latin scripts (such as Tamil, Burmese, Telugu, and Tibetan) by using a line height that’s adapted for each language. The new line heights prevent clipping and improve the positioning of characters. Your app can take advantage of these improvements just by targeting Android 13. Make sure to test your apps when using the new line spacing, since changes may affect your UI in non-Latin languages.

Improved line height for non-Latin scripts in apps targeting Android 13 (bottom).

Text Conversion APIs - People who speak languages like Japanese and Chinese use phonetic lettering input methods, which often slow down searching and features like auto-completion. In Android 13, apps can call the new text conversion API so users can find what they're looking for faster and easier. Previously, for example, searching required a Japanese user to (1) input Hiragana as the phonetic pronunciation of their search term (i.e. a place or an app name), (2) use the keyboard to convert the Hiragana characters to Kanji, (3) re-search using the Kanji characters to (4) get their search results. With the new text conversion API, Japanese users can type in Hiragana and immediately see Kanji search results live, skipping steps 2 and 3.

Color vector fonts - Android 13 adds rendering support for COLR version 1 (spec, intro video) fonts and updates the system emoji to the COLRv1 format. COLRv1 is a new, highly compact, font format that renders quickly and crisply at any size. For most apps this will just work, the system handles everything. You can opt in to COLRv1 for your app starting in Developer Preview 2. If your app implements its own text rendering and uses the system's fonts, we recommend opting in and testing emoji rendering. Learn more about COLRv1 in the Chrome announcement.

COLRv1 vector emoji (left) and bitmap emoji.

Bluetooth LE Audio - Low Energy (LE) Audio is the next-generation wireless audio built to replace Bluetooth classic and enable new use cases and connection topologies. It will allow users to share and broadcast their audio to friends and family, or subscribe to public broadcasts for information, entertainment, or accessibility. It’s designed to ensure that users can receive high fidelity audio without sacrificing battery life and be able to seamlessly switch between different use cases that were not possible with Bluetooth Classic. Android 13 adds built-in support for LE Audio, so developers should get the new capabilities for free on compatible devices.

MIDI 2.0 - Android 13 adds support for the new MIDI 2.0 standard, including the ability to connect MIDI 2.0 hardware through USB. This updated standard offers features such as increased resolution for controllers, better support for non-Western intonation, and more expressive performance using per-note controllers.

App compatibility

With each platform release, we’re working to make updates faster and smoother by prioritizing app compatibility as we roll out new platform versions. In Android 13 we’ve made app-facing changes opt-in to give you more time, and we’ve updated our tools and processes to help you get ready sooner.

With Developer Preview 2, we’re well into the release and continuing to improve overall stability, so now is the time to try the new features and changes and give us your feedback. We’re especially looking for input on our APIs, as well as details on how the platform changes affect your apps. Please visit the feedback page to share your thoughts with us or report issues.

 

It’s also a good time to start your compatibility testing and identify any work you’ll need to do. We recommend doing the work early, so you can release a compatible update by Android 13 Beta 1. There’s no need to change your app’s targetSdkVersion at this time, but we do recommend using the behavior change toggles in Developer Options to get a preliminary idea of how your app might be affected by opt-in changes in Android 13.

As we reach Platform Stability in June 2022, all of the app-facing system behaviors, SDK/NDK APIs, and non-SDK lists will be finalized. At that point, you can wind up your final compatibility testing and release a fully compatible version of your app, SDK, or library. More on the timeline for developers is here.

App compatibility toggles in Developer Options.

Get started with Android 13

The Developer Preview has everything you need to try the Android 13 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. You can get started today by flashing a device system image to a Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, Pixel 4a (5G), Pixel 4a, Pixel 4 XL, or Pixel 4 device. If you don’t have a Pixel device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio Dolphin. For even broader testing, GSI images are available. If you’ve already installed a preview build to your Pixel device, you’ll automatically get this update and all later previews and Betas over the air. More details on how to get Android 13 are here.

For complete information, visit the Android 13 developer site.

Posted by Dave Burke, VP of Engineering

Every day, billions of people around the world pull out their Android device to help them get things done. That Android works well for each and every one of them is ensured in part through a collaborative process with you, our developer community, sharing feedback to help us make Android stronger.

Today, we’re sharing a first look at the next release of Android, with the Android 13 Developer Preview 1. With Android 13 we’re continuing some important themes: privacy and security, as well as developer productivity. We’ll also build on some of the newer updates we made in 12L to help you take advantage of the 250+ million large screen Android devices currently running.

This is just the start for Android 13, and we’ll have lots more to share as we move through the release. Read on for a taste of what’s new, and visit the Android 13 developer site for details on downloads for Pixel and the release timeline. As always, it’s crucial to get your feedback early, to help us include it in the final release. We’re looking forward to hearing what you think, and thanks in advance for your continued help in making Android a platform that works for everyone!

Privacy & security at the core

People want an OS and apps that they can trust with their most personal and sensitive information. Privacy is core to Android’s product principles, and Android 13 focuses on building a responsible and high quality platform for all by providing a safer environment on the device and more controls to the user. In today’s release, we’re introducing a photo picker that allows users to share photos and videos securely with apps, and a new Wi-Fi permission to further minimize the need for apps to have the location permission. We recommend trying out the new APIs and testing how the changes may affect your app.

Photo picker and APIs - To help protect photo and video privacy of users, Android 13 adds a system photo picker — a standard and optimized way for users to share both local and cloud-based photos securely. Android’s long standing document picker allows a user to share specific documents of any type with an app, without that app needing permission to view all media files on the device. The photo picker extends this capability with a dedicated experience for picking photos and videos. Apps can use the photo picker APIs to access the shared photos and videos without needing permission to view all media files on the device. We plan to bring the photo picker experience to more Android users through Google Play system updates, as part of a MediaProvider module update for devices (excepting Go devices) running Android 11 and higher. Give photo picker APIs a try and let us know your feedback!

Photo picker provides a consistent, secure way for users
to give apps access to specific photos and videos.

Nearby device permission for Wi-Fi - Android 13 introduces the NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES runtime permission (part of the NEARBY_DEVICES permission group) for apps that manage a device's connections to nearby access points over Wi-Fi. The new permission will be required for apps that call many commonly-used Wi-Fi APIs, and enables apps to discover and connect to nearby devices over Wi-Fi without needing location permission. Previously, the location permission requirements were a challenge for apps that needed to connect to nearby Wi-Fi devices but didn’t actually need the device location. Apps targeting Android 13 will be now able to request the NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES permission with the “neverForLocation” flag instead, which should help promote a privacy-friendly app design while reducing friction for developers. Learn more.

Developer productivity and tools

Android 13 also brings new features and tools for developer productivity. Helping you create beautiful apps that run on billions of devices is one of our core missions – whether it’s in Android 13 or through our tools for modern Android development, like a language you love in Kotlin or opinionated APIs with Jetpack. By helping you work more productively, we aim to lower your cost of development so you can focus on continuing to build amazing experiences. Here’s some of what’s new in today’s release.

Quick Settings Placement API - Quick Settings in the notification shade is a convenient way for users to change settings or take quick actions without leaving the context of an app. For apps that provide custom tiles, we’re making it easier for users to discover and add your tiles to Quick Settings. Using a new tile placement API, your app can now prompt the user to directly add your custom tile to the set of active Quick Settings tiles. A new system dialog lets the user add the tile in one step, without leaving your app, rather than having to go to Quick Settings to add the tile.

 

Themed app icons - In Android 13 we’re extending Material You dynamic color beyond Google apps to all app icons, letting users opt into icons that inherit the tint of their wallpaper and other theme preferences. All your app needs to supply is a monochromatic app icon (for example, your notification drawable) and a tweak to the adaptive icon XML. We’re encouraging all developers to provide compatible icons to help provide a consistent experience for users who have opted in. Themed app icons are initially supported on Pixel devices and we’re working with our device manufacturer partners to bring them to more devices. Learn more.

 

Per-app language preferences - Some apps let users choose a language that differs from the system language, to meet the needs of multilingual users. Such apps can now call a new platform API to set or get the user’s preferred language, helping to reduce boilerplate code and improve compatibility when setting the app’s runtime language. For broader compatibility, we'll be adding a similar API in an upcoming Jetpack library. Learn more.

Faster hyphenation - Hyphenation makes wrapped text easier to read and helps make your UI more adaptive. In Android 13 we’ve optimized hyphenation performance by as much as 200% so you can now enable it in your TextViews with almost no impact on rendering performance. To enable faster hyphenation, use the new fullFast or normalFast frequencies in setHyphenationFrequency(). Give faster hyphenation a try and let us know what you think!

Programmable shaders - Android 13 adds support for programmable RuntimeShader objects, with behavior defined using the Android Graphics Shading Language (AGSL). AGSL shares much of its syntax with GLSL, but works within the Android rendering engine to customize painting within Android's canvas as well as filtering of View content. Android internally uses these shaders to implement ripple effects, blur, and stretch overscroll, and Android 13 enables you to create similar advanced effects for your app.

AGSL animated shader, adapted
from this GLSL Shader

OpenJDK 11 updates - In Android 13 we’ve started the work of refreshing Android's Core Libraries to align with the OpenJDK 11 LTS release, with both library updates and Java 11 programming language support for app and platform developers. We also plan to bring these Core Library changes to more devices through Google Play system updates, as part of an ART module update for devices running Android 12 and higher. Learn more.

App compatibility

With each platform release we’re working to make updates faster and smoother by prioritizing app compatibility as we roll out new platform versions. In Android 13 we’ve made most app-facing changes opt-in to give you more time, and we’ve updated our tools and processes to help you get ready sooner.

More of Android updated through Google Play - In Android 13 we’re continuing to expand our investment in Google Play system updates (Project Mainline) to give apps a more consistent, secure environment across devices, and to deliver new features and capabilities to users. We can now push new features like photo picker and OpenJDK 11 directly to users on older versions of Android through updates to existing modules. We’ve also added new modules, such as the Bluetooth and Ultra wideband modules, to further expand the scope of Android’s updatable core functionality.

Optimizing for tablets, foldables, and Chromebooks - With all the momentum in large screen devices like tablets, foldables, and Chromebooks, now is the time to get your apps ready for these devices and design fully adaptive apps that fit any screen. You can get started using our guidance on optimizing for tablets, then learn how to build for large screens and develop for foldables.

Easier testing and debugging of changes - To make it easier for you to test the opt-in changes that can affect your app, we’ll make many of them toggleable again this year. WIth the toggles you can force-enable or disable the changes individually from Developer options or adb. Check out the details here.

App compatibility toggles in Developer Options.

Platform stability milestone - Like last year, we’re letting you know our Platform Stability milestone well in advance, to give you more time to plan for app compatibility work. At this milestone we’ll deliver not only final SDK/NDK APIs, but also final internal APIs and app-facing system behaviors. This year we’re expecting to reach Platform Stability in June 2022, and from that time you’ll have several weeks before the official release to do your final testing. The release timeline details are here.

 

Get started with Android 13

The Developer Preview has everything you need to try the Android 13 features, test your apps, and give us feedback. For testing your app with tablets and foldables, the easiest way to get started is using the Android Emulator in a tablet or foldable configuration - complete setup instructions are here. For phones, you can get started on a device today by flashing a system image to a Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, Pixel 4a (5G), Pixel 4a, Pixel 4 XL, or Pixel 4 device. If you don’t have a Pixel device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio. For even broader testing, GSI images are available.

When you’re set up, here are some of the things you should do:

• Try the new features and APIs - your feedback is critical during the early part of the developer preview. Report issues in our tracker or give us direct feedback by survey for selected features from the feedback and requests page.
• Test your current app for compatibility - learn whether your app is affected by default behavior changes in Android 13. Just install your current published app onto a device or emulator running Android 13 and test.
• Test your app with opt-in changes - Android 13 has opt-in behavior changes that only affect your app when it’s targeting the new platform. It’s extremely important to understand and assess these changes early. To make it easier to test, you can toggle the changes on and off individually.

We’ll update the preview system images and SDK regularly throughout the Android 13 release cycle. This initial preview release is for developers only and not intended for daily or consumer use, so we're making it available by manual download only. Once you’ve manually installed a preview build, you’ll automatically get future updates over-the-air for all later previews and Betas. More here.

As we reach our Beta releases, we'll be inviting consumers to try Android 13 as well, and we'll open up enrollments for the Android Beta program at that time. For now, please note that Android Beta is not yet available for Android 13.

For complete information, visit the Android 13 developer site.

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