Android TV 13 is now official, and Google issued a three-part changelog
The changelog is separated into three categories. Let’s talk about ‘Media & Performance and Quality” first, shall we. Android 13 adds new APIs to the mix, those are supposed to help developers make better apps, basically. Apps can now use anticipatory audio routing to figure out the routed device, and supported formats, before making an AudioTrack. HDMI performance has been improved, as user-adjustable resolution and refresh rate on supported devices are now a thing. Google also sent out power management enhancements for low-powered standby have also been rolled out. Under the ‘Accessibility and Input Controls’, several entries have been added. The system privacy controls now reflect the state of hardware mute switches. On the remote, user controls for assistant microphone access have been updated. On top of that, global audio description preferences for all apps are now a thing. The new Keyboard Layouts API allows you to choose between different language layouts for external keyboards. The last category is ‘HDMI & Tuner’. Google has four entries here. The company improved the handling of HDMI source device state changes. Language selection for HDMI source devices has been improved too.
HAL 2.0 brings forth various enhancements
HAL 2.0 has been added with performance enhancements, a twin tuner, and ISDB-T multi-layer support. On top of that, this framework provides a framework for interactive TV use cases, as an extension of TIF. Do note that Android TV 13 is now available for both ADT-3 and the Android TV emulator. The developers can test on either the Google TV or regular Android TV interface. If you need more information, visit the Android TV OS developer site. For the launch of Android TV 13, Google said the following: “Android 13 adds further customizations to improve the user experience and increase compatibility with TV devices. Some of the highlights for this release include performance and quality improvements, and continued advancements to how users interact with Android TV”.
