Android 13’s first developer preview has simply been launched, and it provides a few fascinating hints about Google’s focus for this 12 months’s huge cellular OS replace. The new options embrace upgraded theming choices and privateness options, new language controls, and, in fact, loads of back-end updates. These early previews are meant for builders quite than finish customers, so it’s greatest to carry off on upgrading till the software program is in a extra completed state.

After Android 12’s heavy deal with Material You customizable themes, Android 13 is increasing the dynamic app icons to all apps quite than simply Google’s. The themed icons function lets app icons tackle a colour tint that compliments your wallpaper as long as app builders provide a suitable monochromatic app icon. The function is coming first to Pixel gadgets, however Google says it’s working with different producers to launch it extra extensively.

There are additionally tweaks to how Android handles permissions and safety. A brand new photograph picker will let customers share photographs and movies with a person app with out the app needing permission to see all of the photographs you will have in your gadget. Google plans to ultimately deliver this function to all telephones working Android 11 and up.

Of course, there’s additionally rather a lot occurring below the hood with this new developer preview, with adjustments which might be prone to be much less apparent in on a regular basis use. For instance, a brand new Wi-Fi permission will permit apps to find and hook up with Wi-Fi factors while not having location permissions, and language preferences will now have the choice of being set on a per-app foundation (helpful for multilingual customers). Google additionally says it’s persevering with to spend money on its Project Mainline initiative to ship extra updates by way of Google Play quite than on the OS stage.

Google says that it intends to launch Android 13’s developer previews over the course of February and March and transition to beta releases round April. It expects Android 13 to be secure by round June or July, forward of an official launch later within the 12 months. Hopefully, this 12 months’s replace goes extra easily than Android 12, which was plagued with stability points on many gadgets.