- [Party People] Happy Birthday, Android.
- Whoa!
I'm not a kid anymore.
- [Person Off Camera] Yep, you're 13.
Honestly, you haven't matured much this year,
but turns out the numbers go up anyway.
(comical music)
- That's right.
With the launch of version 13,
Android has left its awkward tweens behind,
beginning its long journey into its stylish teens.
Some of the highlights include greater customization,
take that, Apple, better privacy,
and better Bluetooth than ever.
But will they stay on the right path
or will they fall in with that crowd?
Like I've fallen in with our sponsor.
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Visually, Google is bringing even
more customization options
to their Material You design language,
allowing you to make it more you-er.
On 12, using the auto themer,
you could customize your phone
with four generated color palettes pulled
from your phone's wallpaper, or just four basic colors,
which is pretty okay.
But now you get 12 palettes
that can use complementary colors
that aren't necessarily found in your wallpaper.
Will Google graciously allow you
to choose the colors yourself, though?
Maybe in 14.
Not today.
But color changes can be applied to other apps now.
While there aren't too many applications
out there that support Material You's auto theming yet,
the concept is pretty cool when it works.
Also, third-party apps can now take advantage
of themed icons, though we only came
across a single app that did so, Relay for Reddit.
So if you're looking for that perfectly themed home screen,
you'll still have to do it yourself
with a custom icon pack.
But don't worry about that.
Look at this new media player.
It's got a squiggly line now.
In all seriousness, though,
it is nice to be able to scrub audio
without pulling the notification shade
all the way down, and the dynamic theming
to match your album art looks pretty cool
without giving up any functionality.
It's like the LTT's backpack.
It looks great, has tons of amazing pockets,
and is built to last.
lttstore.com.
Oh, yeah, and tucked in that notification shade,
you'll find a convenient button
for quick draw QR code scanning.
That's right.
Finally, after two painful years
of pandemic-ing, you no longer have
to remember if you scan QR codes
in your Camera app or the Google app
or that third-party one that you got,
when you're trying to read the freaking drink menu.
Another welcome convenience is the option
to control your home devices from a locked state.
I personally wouldn't recommend doing that, though.
I mean, you don't want some nefarious actor getting control
of your smart home after they steal your phone.
But then again, if Mark Zuckerberg basically
already lives in your house, what difference does it make?
- Brisket and ribs, I hope.
- A lot.
I seriously wouldn't really do this
unless you only have smart lights
and a smart popcorn maker.
No doors, no security cameras.
The next thing is way up my alley, though.
You know those pesky notifications
from that random idle game you downloaded,
or even Twitter, for that matter?
They have notifications for everything in that app.
Well, forget about them,
because app notifications are now opt-in
in Android 13.
Thank you, Google.
As someone with an endless stream of notifications,
this really helps to make sure
that I never miss a Floatplane upload.
Sometimes we upload pet pictures,
other times hilarious behind-the-scenes
or other exclusives.
Check it out on floatplane.com.
Another thing I'm thankful for is the return
of Google Assistant to the Home button
for us stalwart three-button navigation fans.
You can still hold the Lock button if you want,
but now you have the option
to do it the way nature intended.
You know what you can't do, though?
Get rid of the bloody At A Glance widget.
I should be able to move or remove anything I want
from my home screen.
Forget about Material You.
I want Material Me--
(holding pattern beeps)
One of my other favorite additions
is the new clipboard widget alert thing.
When you copy a piece of text,
a small preview pops up in the bottom
of your screen which gives you quick access
to a share button, and if you click the text preview,
you can actually edit the text you copied
before you share it.
As someone who's always sending important information
to people, this is an absolute life-saver.
Like when you copy text from Google Lens
and it slightly misinterprets it,
you can fix it right then and there
and forward it off.
And Google now automatically empties your clipboard
after an hour, keeping
any copy-pasted passwords safe and sound.
And there's even more good stuff,
thanks to Google's famed interest in user privacy.
Thank you, Apple, by the way.
No, for real, this is not a sarcastic thank-you-Apple,
because your famed interest in user privacy has
really put pressure on Google to match you.
In Android 13, when an app wants you to upload media,
say for a profile picture,
you no longer have to give the app access
to all the media on your device,
just the specific photos that you want to share with it.
And instead of providing an app access
to all of your local storage,
there are now specific popups for videos,
music, photos, and audio.
However, it's not a user-side decision,
so the app developer still gets to choose
which permissions they ask for,
meaning you need to read those notifications
to ensure that you're aware of what you're sharing.
Android 13 also fixes some
of Android 12's location weirdness.
Before, if you wanted to locate nearby devices
via Bluetooth or WiFi, you would have
to allow the app location access.
But now the search is handled by a separate runtime,
keeping your location information safe
and only in the hands of Uber, Google, Facebook,
and all the other apps who already know your every move.
And now Google allows you to set language settings per app,
so you polyglots can have your Gmail in German
and your web browser in English
without having to dig into your phone settings.
Spatial audio, a technology that frankly
still smells a little gimmicky to me,
is now available in the OS.
You don't need specific applications
to take advantage of it.
And let's see, oh, right (snaps fingers),
one forward-looking addition is Bluetooth LE Audio support.
It's kinda like Bluetooth Low Energy,
so like lower energy, but now with 100% more audio,
and Bluetooth SIG is betting
on it being the future of Bluetooth.
See? Look at this graph.
Wow!
The traditional SBC codec is only three or four.
But the new LC3 codec featured in Bluetooth LE audio,
it's almost five the whole time.
We don't have the time to dive into this graph,
or whatever the heck it is they're trying to convey here,
but the gist is that Bluetooth LE audio will allow
for greater audio quality at lower bit rates,
using less power, and allowing you to connect
to multiple devices at the same time.
To clarify, I know that it's already possible
to playback to two pairs of headphones at once
if you and your SO wanna watch a movie together
on the plane.
But this new tech takes that a step further.
It's called Auracast and it has no practical limit
to the number of Bluetooth devices that you can cast to.
So frouples rejoice.
And why stop there?
You and your whole polycule could have
your own silent disco.
(dancers quietly using filler hype phrases)
(dancer coughs)
Now it's more likely that we'll see
these concepts deployed for advertising
or so that you can bring your own headphones
for the museum audio tour.
But hey, it's fun to imagine cooler possibilities, right?
Google is also making their
whole ecosystem a bit more cohesive.
They've actually started supporting tablet-specific updates
for big screen devices with Android 12L,
and with Android 13, they added a ChromeOS-like shelf
that allows for quick and easy multitasking,
along with proper palm rejection for styluses,
which I cannot believe that they didn't have yet.
You can now stream messages from any messaging app
to Chrome OS, allowing you to reply
to anyone who calls from the comfort
of your Chromebook that you definitely own,
and Google says that you'll be able to copy-paste
from your phone to your tablet in the future, hopefully.
That's it, isn't it?
If it all seems a little underwhelming, that's fair.
Google has clearly taken this year
to sand Android 12's rough edges down,
but hey, making their excellent OS even excellent-er is
not necessarily a bad thing,
and honestly, it's the kinda thing
that we often hound companies to do.
Hey, don't just keep adding more features.
Fix your darn bugs, right?
So here it is.
Currently, Android 13 is only available
on Pixel devices, but it will be rolling out
to other devices later in the year.
Will it roll out to your device?
Unless it's a Pixel, who knows?
That's up to your device manufacture,
and sometimes your carrier, sometimes blind luck.
Yay.
Maybe next year we'll see a bigger update,
or maybe we won't,
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- If you guys enjoyed this video,
maybe check out our video
about Apple's iPhone repair program.
It's really cool in some ways,
but also characteristically Apple in others.