Android 13 TV available, but not yet to be installed

The wait lasted months but finally Google has launched Android 13 for the Android TV operating system. That’s the good news, but let’s get straight to the bad news: the new operating system won’t be available on any devices we own for a while yet, as Android TV 13 has currently only been made available on the ADT-3 for developers and the Android TV emulator in Android Studio. Both Android TV and Google TV versions are available.

We recall that not much has passed since the first beta, proposed only in May of this year, which allowed us to get a preview of some minor innovations, which emerged within the code, such as the expanded PiP, Low Power Stand-by and Fast Pair. For more information, we refer you to reading the original articles.

While waiting to be able to try it, let’s try to focus on the main innovations introduced by the new OS.

Android TV 13, like many of the other previous updates of the big screen platform, introduces minor changes in terms of impact on the end user. In the announcement of the update, Google highlights some key features, which we report below divided into the two main areas.

Performance and quality

Android 13 brings to the big screen new APIs that help developers deliver high-quality experiences to users across different types of devices.

• Improvements to the AudioManager API allow developers to anticipate audio attribute support for the active audio device and select the optimal format without starting playback.
• Users can now change the default resolution and refresh rate on supported HDMI source devices for a more reliable playback experience.
• HDMI state changes are now featured in the MediaSession lifecycle, allowing TV dongles and other HDMI source devices to conserve power and pause content in reaction to HDMI state changes.

Accessibility and input controls

Android 13 brings new features to make interacting with your TV more adaptable.

• The InputDevice API now supports different keyboard layouts. Game developers can also refer to keys by their physical location to support different physical keyboard layouts.
• A new audio description API in AccessibilityManager allows your app to query the new system-wide audio description preference setting, helping developers automatically deliver audio descriptions that align with user preferences.

We just have to wait for further details on the final release, in the meantime those who want more information on Android 13 TV can do so from the page dedicated to developers (in VIA), while in SOURCE the installation instructions dedicated to developers.