Google is claiming that it developed Android 13 with privacy and security in mind. Of course, that has been the general theme of the past few versions of Android as well. This first preview does include a new system photo picker. So users can share local and cloud-based photos more securely. This means that you can share things from your phone, OneDrive, Google Drive, Google Photos, Dropbox, and more, a lot easier. Also new in Android 13 is the new Nearby device permission for WiFi. This will allow the NEARBY_WIFI_DEVICES runtime permission to be mandatory for any app that calls the commonly-used WiFi APIs. It also allows apps to search and connect to nearby devices over WiFi, without requiring location permissions from users. That’s different from the current behavior where apps need the device location to be able to connect to nearby WiFi devices.
There will be six releases, over six months
For Android 13, Google is planning for six releases, over the course of six months. That likely means two developer previews (or alphas) and then four betas. With the final version coming out around August. That’s when the new version of Android typically launches, though last year it was a bit later. That could be due to the many changes that Android 12 brought. The preview is available for the Pixel 4, Pixel 4 XL, Pixel 4a, Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 5, Pixel 5a, Pixel 6, and Pixel 6 Pro. That also means that the Pixel 3a won’t be getting any further operating system upgrades, but should still continue getting security updates until at least May.
