Android 13, Developer Preview 2 arrives with many new features: a taste of Tiramisu

A little more than a month after the debut of Android 13 with the first Developer Preview, which we also showed you in action in our test, it’s time to give another taste of Tiramisu (code name of this new version) that big G is preparing for the little green robot. Google (which had also revealed the dates of the I / O 2022 today) has in fact just released the Developer Preview 2 of Android 13and it is therefore time to take a look into the future and see what others Announcements appear.

Google decided to create an experience optimized for large displays. The recent Android 12L update brings a taskbar at the bottom of the display for some devices equipped with a large screen, such as tablets and folds. On Android 13 Developer Preview 2 this bar receives a new iconthat of drawerwhich then allows you to open the app drawer.

Android 13 will bring news on the privacy front, a subject to which users are increasingly sensitive. The Developer Preview brings an unprecedented request for permission (even if apparently already well known) that asks the user whether or not to authorize the receipt of notifications by a particular app.

In reality it is one functionality already present in past iterations of the green robot, but currently it is still possible that some apps automatically receive permissions, or inherit them from previous versions of Android.

Developer Preview 2 provides one instead new API that cleans up, protects user privacy and downgrades permissions granted in the past.

If it’s called Developer Preview, there is a reason: in fact this preliminary incarnation of Android 13 is intended for developers, which Google now provides new tools for oriental languages. We are talking about the possibility of dividing Japanese texts into Bunetsu or sentences instead of characters in order to optimize reading.

For languages ​​such as Tamil or Tibetan it is also possible to use a different line height for each language, in order to avoid overlapping of the text. In addition, there is also a new API for converting text for Chinese and Japanese that takes advantage of the support to COLVR1a brand new font format that offers fast and accurate renders regardless of size.

With Android 13 Developer Preview 2 comes the support for Bluetooth Low Energy, abbreviated to LE, it is a technology that guarantees ahigh quality of the audio signal going to mitigate consumption, to the benefit of autonomy. In addition there is also support for the MIDI 2.0 standard thanks to which it will be possible to connect MIDI devices through the USB-C port.

Taking a look at the timeline communicated by Google, the Developer Preview 2 will also be the last: ad April should be released there first beta version of Android 13, with the platform stability expected in June. For the final release, however, a precise period has not yet been indicated.

We remind you that it is possible to install the Developer Preview 2 of Android 13 (at the user’s own risk, considering the instability of the system at this height and the need to flash the ROM) only if you have one of the following Google-branded smartphones: Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 4a, Pixel 5, Pixel 5a, Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro.

(updated February 27, 2022, 6:23 pm)