As the world's most popular mobile operating system, the first beta version of Android 13 has been officially released after two consecutive developer previews. In terms of market usage of each version, Android 11 is the most popular version, followed by Android 10.
Google I/0 2022 is less than a month away, and the first beta version of Android 13 is coming as scheduled. If you have a Pixel 4 or later device, you can experience it in advance.
Android 13 focuses on user privacy and security, developer productivity and tablets, and support for larger screens. From the release announcement, the first Beta version is mainly for developer users.
Android 13 Beta feature introduction
More granular media access permissions
From the perspective of user privacy and security, this version opens permissions such as notifications and photo selectors to users, and users can open relevant permissions for apps to access services such as photos, videos, or music and notifications.
This version will introduce a new permission access mechanism, and the permissions will be more refined when apps access shared media files. For example, when an application needs to read locally shared media files, it needs to apply for the READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE permission, which allows access to all types of media files.
Based on the new permissions, applications can request access to locally specific types of files:
- READ_MEDIA_IMAGES (for images and photos)
- READ_MEDIA_VIDEO (for videos)
- READ_MEDIA_AUDIO (for audio files)
When the user authorizes, the application will have read access to the corresponding media file type. To simplify the user experience, if an application requests both READ_MEDIA_IMAGE and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO, the system displays a dialog that grants both permissions.
More detailed bug reports
This release provides more detailed error reporting in Keystore and KeyMint - Keystore and KeyMint now provide more detailed and accurate error indications for applications that generate keys. Added an exception class hierarchy under java.security.ProviderException containing Android-specific exceptions, including Keystore/KeyMint error codes, and whether errors can be retried. Developers can also modify key generation, signing and encryption methods to throw new exceptions.
New Audio Routing API
This release adds a new audio routing API to the AudioManager class. The new getAudioDevicesForAttributes() API allows developers to retrieve a list of devices that may be used to play the specified audio, and the getDirectProfilesForAttributes() API has also been added to help developers find out if the audio stream can be played directly. With the new API, developers can determine the best AudioFormat to use for the audio track.
In addition, according to the release route, Android 13 Beta 2 is expected to be launched in May. Dave Burke, vice president of Google engineers, also said in the release announcement that he will share more at the Google I/O conference on May 11-12.
For those who have already tried the developer preview version, the system will automatically obtain the above updates. If you want to conduct more extensive testing on the device, developers can sign up for the beta program to upgrade or download the OTA package or full image.
Android 13 Beta Announcement Link: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2022/04/android-13-beta-1-blog.html