It has been a while since Google released the first developer preview of Android 13. However, today, the company has finally come out with the first beta, and honestly, I am surprised to see how fast things are moving for the newest version of Android. If all things go accordingly, we can expect a stable launch later this year.
One of the main reasons why Android 13 is closer than ever is because as compared to Android 12, it is not that big of a jump, to begin with. Sure, Android 12 was a massive departure from Android 11, but with Android 13, Google is just refining things, and that s the reason why the first beta does not bring a heap of features.
Another reason why the Android 13 Beta 1 is not bringing a lot of new features is that Google is likely holding back a few. Considering how Google I/O is happening on May 11th and the company is more than likely going to introduce a bunch of new features at the event.
With that said, we are going to list down the new features that are now available in Android 13.
Android 13 Beta 1 Brings a Small But Important List of Features
Google has decided to add three new features this time around in Android 13 and while two of them will benefit the developers, one of them is for the users and should improve their experience.
The first one is that you are now getting granular permissions for media. In Android 12 or earlier, when an app wanted to access media files saved on a device’s local storage, it needed to ask for permission. However, upon granting the permission, it would get access to all the media rather than the specific media. This changes with Android 13 as the user will now get to choose what sort of media file they want to give permission to. This means that the permissions for images, videos, and audio files are now going to be different.
Moving forward, another new feature relates to better error reporting. Some Android apps generate keys using the KeyStore and KeyMint. However, if the key generation does not work, it can sometimes be difficult to figure out why. The Android 13 beta will give more explicit error reporting, making it easier for key generation.
Last but not the least, there is a new API that will help apps properly route audio. This is going to help developers understand whether or not an app’s audio stream can be played directly. This will also help the apps figure out the best format to use for their app audio.
These are all the features that have arrived on the Android 13 Beta 1, we will keep you posted as there is more development.
