Michael Troyer 2022’s big Android up-date, Android 13, is formally releasing now for Google’s Pixel phones, the search giant has made known. The yearly upgrade is getting an official release a little earlier than usual, after Android 12’s release last October and the Android 11 introduction in September of 2020.
The lineup of upgrades arriving with this year’s variation of Android is most likely to be familiar if you’ve been keeping up with Android 13’s beta releases. There’s the feature to customise non-Google app icons to match your homescreen wallpaper that we found in Android 13’s first developer preview, a new permission to minimize notification spam, and a new choice to control which of your photos and also videos an app can get access to.
The upgrade contains support for spatial audio with head tracking, which is built to make sounds appear as though they’re originating from a fixed point in space when you move your head while wearing compatible headphones, comparable to a function Apple uses for its AirPods. Today’s article doesn’t say specifically which headphones this will work with, but Google recently announced it would be upgrading its Pixel Buds Pro to deliver support for spatial audio.
Additionally, there’s the ability to stream messages from apps like Google Messages directly to a Chromebook, identical to iMessage on the Mac. It’s one more function that Google described in January. In addition to its own Messages app, one of Google’s promotional resources also shows this functioning with the messaging app Signal, as well as the organization points out the feature will function with “a number of your other favorite messaging apps.” The revision in addition incorporates a feature that assists you copy content from an Android device to be pasted on an Android tablet and the other way around.
Other Android 13 aspects include the capacity to set up languages on a per-app basis, an upgraded media player that adjusts its look based on what you’re listening to, support for Bluetooth Low Energy for greater sound quality at lower bitrates and reduced latency, increased multitasking on large-screen units with drag as well as drop support for multitasking, and even better palm rejection whenever employing styluses.
This update should be coming to products from additional producers such as Oppo, Samsung, OnePlus, HMD, Motorola, Realme, Sony, Xiaomi as well as Asus later in the year, Google’s Sameer Samat publishes in the headline post. For additional details on the improvements appearing in the update, take a look at Google’s blog here
