The very first developer previews of Android 13 won’t be released until at least March, but that’s not already stopping Android 13 leaks from popping up. Of course, more features will be revealed in the coming months, but Android 13 is already shaping up to be a solid release.
More Material You color options
The main feature of Android 12 was “Material You”, a top-to-bottom redesign and a dynamic theme system that automatically changed UI colors to match your wallpaper. Set a mostly yellow background and material You’ll apply various yellow tints to backgrounds, notifications, buttons, icons, and more. of your app. I think it looks great, but it might not be for everyone.
Android 13 seems to expand the color system and give users more options. Android Police’s Ryne Hager has screenshots starting with a preview that shows four different theme algorithms to choose from. There’s “Tonal Spot,” which appears to be Android 12’s current color scheme, and then there are three new color schemes called “Vibrant”, “Expressive” and “Spritz”.
Sample screenshots are provided in the report, but none of the color options look drastically different from each other. I wouldn’t read too much into the exact color results shown here. In Android 12, Material You’s color system has been continually tweaked in preparation for release, and these color results from a pre-alpha version of Android 13 are likely not complete.
A side effect of Android 12’s color system is that almost all wallpapers produce a pastel accent, and it’s generally impossible to get stronger accent colors from most wallpapers. . On paper, the color option named “Vibrant” would appear to be designed to provide an alternative to all pastels, but the sample images differ only marginally from the default colors. I wouldn’t call the “Vibrant” option “vibrant” at all, and I think that’s because the new color system just isn’t finished yet. from google promotional pictures for the Pixel 6, bold, deep hues of purple, orange, red, and gray, all of which are unobtainable on Android 12. The “Vibrant” color option seems to suit colors like these.
Right now, the “Spritz” option spits out a color sheet of all shades of gray. Some people have asked to disable the Material You color system, and this option seems to go in that direction. If completely “off” is out of the question, users who don’t want all those colors in their phone’s operating system would certainly prefer a muted, less disruptive color selection. As a “version 2” update to Material You, this all makes sense to me: one option really leans into the color feature, and another option lets people opt out of it.
App opt-in notifications
Android has long had a permissions system, which displays an “allow” or “deny” dialog whenever an app requests something sensitive. Before the permission system, every app had access to all permissions. It was every man for himself. That’s sort of how Android notifications work now. Every app has access to the notification panel, and while you can ban an app after it bothers you with a notification, notification access is enabled by default.
According to XDA Developers Aamir Siddiqui and another android font Report, this apparently changes in Android 13. Apps will now have to display a permission box for notifications, and users will be able to proactively allow or deny an app the ability to disturb them. Like all permissions options, this has been around on iOS for a while, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good idea. It will be a great improvement for Android users. The overwhelming majority of apps don’t need access to notifications, but since it’s an easy way to boost app engagement, it’s tempting to overuse it.
