Google has prepared a slightly changed interface for computers in Android 13. When a device indicates to the operating system that it is a PC, additional buttons appear on the taskbar and applications open in windows instead of full screen.
The Discovery It was made by Android expert Mishaal Rahman, who wrote a very comprehensive report on all the novelties he has in the latest version Android 13 Developer Preview 2 He was able to detect it. The device type “android.hardware.type.pc” does exist, but has only been used by Android apps to explicitly indicate an operating system that supports Chromebooks. This is a different operating system, but it also runs Android apps.
In version 13, Android does more with that. Additional accommodations for large screen devices have already been offered in Android 12 forTo increase ease of use on tablets and foldable devices. Now, Android is taking another step towards devices with large screens.
On the right side of the taskbar are the permanent buttons for notifications and the settings menu. In addition, by default, all applications start with the . format Free-form multi-window mode, which means that the applications have their own windows and can be arranged in the way the user wants. This form of displaying apps has been in the operating system since Android 7, but it has never been used. Rahman has not posted screenshots of applications in windowed mode.
If Google plans to build Android in this direction and provide good support for laptops and desktops, it will interfere with Chrome OS. If this really happened, the merging of the two Google operating systems would not be conceivable.
Another innovation that will be applied to Android in the future is that notifications from apps will become a matter of opting in rather than opting out; So users will have to grant the permission on first notifications before the app can show it. This variant starts from api level 33, so until this level becomes the minimum requirement in the Play Store, apps can still get around it. Currently it is minimum It’s still level 29, which is equivalent to Android 10.
Screenshot of Mishaal Rahman captured on Pixel 6 Pro with modified dpi settings and a PC Device type feature to explain
