Android 13: Leaks highlight additional Material You options, app notification subscription

The very first Android 13 developer previews won’t come out until at least March, but that doesn’t stop Android 13 leaks from popping up. Of course, additional features will be revealed in the coming months, but Android 13 is already shaping up to be a solid release.

More Material Color Options You

The main feature of Android 12 was “Material You”, a top-down redesign and a dynamic theme system that automatically changed UI colors based on your wallpaper. Set mostly yellow background and material. You’ll be applying different yellow hues to your app’s background, notifications, buttons, icons, and more. I think it looks great, but it might not be for everyone.

Android 13 seems to be expanding the color system and giving users more options. Ryan Hager of Android Police has pre-build screenshots showing four different theme algorithms to choose from. There’s Tonal Spot, which seems to be the current Android 12 color system, and then three new color systems called Vivid, Expressive, and Spritz.

Sample screenshots are provided in the report, but none of the color options appear to be drastically different from each other. I wouldn’t read too much about the exact color results presented here. In Android 12, Material You’s color system has been constantly changing ahead of release, and these color results from the Android 13 pre-alpha are probably not finished yet.

One of the side effects of the Android 12 color system is that almost all wallpapers create a pastel accent, and it’s usually not possible to get brighter accent colors from most wallpapers. On paper, the Vibrant color option might seem like it’s meant to offer an alternative to all the pastels, but the image examples are only slightly different from the default colors.

I wouldn’t call the option Vivid at all, and I think it’s because the new color system isn’t finished yet. Google’s promotional images for the Pixel 6 showcase bold, deep shades of purple, orange, red, and gray that aren’t really available on Android 12. The Vibrant color option seems appropriate for those colors.

Right now, the “Spritz”option produces a color sheet of all gray tones. Some people have asked to turn off the Material You color system, and this option looks like it’s heading in that direction. If completely “off”is out of the question, users who don’t want all that color stuff in their phone OS would definitely prefer a muted, less disruptive color choice. As “version 2″of the Material You update, it all makes sense to me: one option really relies on the color feature, and the other option allows people to opt out of it.

Enable app notifications

Android has long had a permissions system that pops up an “allow”or “deny”dialog box whenever an app requests something sensitive. Prior to the permission system, every application had access to all permissions. It was free for everyone. This is how Android notifications work now. Each app gets access to the notification bar, and while you can lock an app after it bothers you with a notification, notification access is enabled by default.

According to XDA Developers Aamir Siddiqi and another Android Police report, this will apparently change in Android 13. Apps will now need to open a permission popup for notifications, and users will be able to pre-approve or disallow the app to disturb them. Like all permission options, this has been around for a while on iOS, but that doesn’t make it any less of a good idea. This will be a big improvement for Android users. The vast majority of apps don’t need access to notifications, but since it’s an easy way to increase app engagement, it can be abused.