Android 13 Developer Preview 2

Last month, Google released the first developer preview of Android 13, built around our core themes of privacy and security, developer productivity, as well as tablets and large screen support. Today company sharing Android 13 Developer Preview 2 with more new features and changes for you to try in your apps.

What’s new in Developer Preview 2 of Android 13

Privacy and user trust

Notification permission – To help users focus on the notifications that are most important to them, Android 13 introduces a new runtime permission for sending notifications from an app: POST_NOTIFICATIONS. Apps targeting Android 13 will now need to request the notification permission from the user before posting notifications. For apps targeting Android 12 or lower, the system will handle the upgrade flow on your behalf. The flow will continue to be fine tuned.

Developer downgradable permissions – Some apps may no longer require certain permissions which were previously granted by the user to enable a specific feature, or retain a sensitive permission from an older Android version. Android 13 provide a new API to let your app protect user privacy by downgrading previously granted runtime permissions.

Safer exporting of context-registered receivers – In Android 12 developers must to declare the exportability of manifest-declared Intent receivers. In Android 13 must do the same for context-registered receivers as well, by adding either the RECEIVER_EXPORTED or RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED flag when registering receivers for non-system sources. This will help ensure that receivers aren’t available for other applications to send broadcasts to unless desired. While not required in Android 13, Google recommend declaring exportability as a step toward securing your app.

Developer productivity

• Improved Japanese text wrapping
• Improved line heights for non-latin scripts
• Text Conversion APIs
• Color vector fonts
• Bluetooth LE Audio
• MIDI 2.0

Get started with Android 13

The Developer Preview has everything you need to try the Android 13 features, test your apps, and give feedback. You can get started today by flashing a device system image to a Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6, Pixel 5a 5G, Pixel 5, Pixel 4a (5G), Pixel 4a, Pixel 4 XL, or Pixel 4 device. If you don’t have a Pixel device, you can use the 64-bit system images with the Android Emulator in Android Studio Dolphin. For even broader testing, GSI images are available. If you’ve already installed a preview build to your Pixel device, you’ll automatically get this update and all later previews and Betas over the air. More details on how to get Android 13 are here.

For complete information, visit the Android 13 developer site.