This 12 months’s main Android replace, Android 13, is formally releasing at present for Google’s Pixel phones, the search large has introduced. The annual replace is getting an official launch just a little sooner than traditional, following Android 12’s launch final October and (*13*)Android 11’s launch in September 2020.

The record of updates arriving with this 12 months’s model of Android is prone to be acquainted if you happen to’ve been maintaining with Android 13’s beta releases. There’s the power to customise non-Google app icons to match your homescreen wallpaper that we noticed in Android 13’s first developer preview, a new permission to chop down on notification spam, and a brand new choice to restrict which of your photographs and movies an app can entry.

Picture: Google

Picture: Google

Again in January, we wrote that Google deliberate to spend this 12 months catching up with Apple’s ecosystem integrations, and there’s extra proof of this in Android 13’s official launch. The replace contains assist for spatial audio with head monitoring, which is designed to make sounds seem as if they’re coming from a hard and fast level in area once you transfer your head whereas carrying suitable headphones, much like a characteristic Apple provides for its AirPods. At the moment’s put up doesn’t say precisely which headphones this may work with, however Google beforehand introduced it might be updating its Pixel Buds Professional to supply assist for spatial audio.

Secondly, there’s the power to stream messages from apps together with Google Messages on to a Chromebook, much like iMessage on the Mac. It’s one other characteristic that Google detailed in January. In addition to its personal Messages app, considered one of Google’s promotional belongings additionally reveals this working with the messaging app Sign, and the corporate says the characteristic will work with “a lot of your different favourite messaging apps.” The replace additionally features a characteristic that permits you to copy content material from an Android telephone to be pasted on an Android pill and vice versa.

Picture: Google

Picture: Google

Different Android 13 options embody the power to set languages on a per-app foundation, a redesigned media participant that adjusts its look based mostly on what you’re listening to, assist for Bluetooth Low Power for higher sound high quality at decrease bitrates and diminished latency, improved multitasking on large-screen gadgets with drag and drop assist for multitasking, and higher palm rejection when utilizing styluses.

Google’s announcement doesn’t specify precisely which Pixel gadgets will obtain the Android 13 replace at present, however beta variations of the software program have been accessible on every thing from the Pixel 4 by to the lately launched Pixel 6A. The Android replace might be coming to gadgets from different producers together with Samsung, Oppo, OnePlus, HMD, Motorola, Realme, Sony, Xiaomi, and Asus “later this 12 months,” Google’s Sameer Samat writes in at present’s announcement put up. For extra particulars on the modifications arriving within the replace, try Google’s put up.