American Android Expert Mishal Rahmaniwhich documents all the changes Android Has done its job, currently stripping Android 13 Developer Preview 2 that was published yesterday. In doing so, he became aware of many other innovations that he Your employer’s blog Esper.io. documented forAlso on to the changes that make it easier to use Android 13 on PC.
Android 13: DP2 brings new buttons…
…for notifications and quick settings
As Rahman points out in his blog post, for the first time Android 13 with DP2 gets some extra buttons that make it easier to use on PC. Among other things, Google is introducing an expanded Launcher taskbar with Android 13, on which icons for quick access to notifications and quick settings are now displayed along the right edge of the screen, roughly under Windows.
The new button has replaced the 3-button navigation system
The new buttons appear right where other devices with larger displays typically put Android’s 3-button navigation. In addition, Rahman noted that in Android 13 DP2 on PC all apps are now always opened in freeform mode, i.e. freely replaceable. Thus the user can move the windows straight back and forth without any effort on the “desktop”.
Multi-window operation is always enabled, so you can work with multiple programs in windowed mode on the desktop, just like in Windows. However, it is still unclear whether Google will actually be able to officially use the freeform windowed mode with Android 13 in the final version. This was already introduced with Android 7.0, but is still hidden behind a developer option.
It’s also currently unclear what strategic purpose the adjustment in Android 13, which has been pretty manageable so far, is actually intended for use on PC. So far, there have been a few cases where Android is already being used as a PC operating system, but in fact Google is still as fully committed to Chrome OS as it is for notebooks and desktop computers. Operating system of your choice.
Incidentally, the screenshots published by Rahman were taken not on a PC, but on a Pixel 6 Pro, in which he activated the corresponding flags for Surface output in the PC version and increased pixel density.
