It’s already April and we’ve been making steady progress refining the features and stability of Android 13, building around our core themes of privacy and security, developer productivity, as well as tablet and large screen support. Today we’re moving into the next phase of our cycle and releasing the first Beta of Android 13.
Android 13 development seems to be ahead of the regular schedule.
This is something I’ve complained about in earlier versions of android. They required “location” permissions to be granted to apps that need to access radio functionality. Google justified it by saying wireless devices might leak location information, but even if true it’s kind of stupid to require users to additionally grant GPS data. Users that just want to access a light strip or other local bluetooth/wifi devices shouldn’t have to grant GPS permissions at all.
I’d like to test this but unfortunately I’ll need a new phone to try android 13. Having to buy new hardware to get new software always sucks 🙁
What is sad is at least here in the states (IDK if its the same in the EU) is for the vast vast majority of phones being sold right now in the USA if you want a new version of Android? Throw your old phone in the E-Waste pile as that is the ONLY way you’ll ever get it!
I have a nice Umidigi A3 Pro I got in 2019…using it as an MP3 player just to keep from making more E-Waste as it never got so much as a security update and will never get an OS update off Android 8 so into the pile it goes, my current phone is an Ovation given to me by my carrier when they turned off 3G here, nice octocore with a big bright screen…it will be stuck on its stock Android 10 for the life of the phone and I’ll be amazed if it gets even any security updates so it’ll end up E-Waste too long before the phone dies.
So I’d say the biggest change Google needs to do to Android is make it so OS updates are no longer in the hands of the OEMs so that every phone gets an upgrade path instead of being obsoleted by OEMs who only care about sales. i mean can you imagine the security nightmare if companies like Dell and HP were the ones in charge of Windows Updates?
Between the phones and the laptop market being flooded with garbage with everything soldered and eMMC storage that will be dead in a year we are creating a toxic nightmare and while we can’t force companies like Gateway and Acer from making mobile trash we should be holding Google accountable for the phones as there really is no excuse for them not handling updates for their own product.
bassbeast,
Yea no kidding. This has culminated into systemic long term embarrassments for the industry and over decades there’s been too little progress to show for it. All of the parties involved are too damn stubborn to change. Manufacturers don’t have an incentive to provide long term support. Manufacturers aren’t going to open source their drivers to allow others to provide independent support. Regulators and politicians pander to corporate lobbyists. Linux leadership won’t accept a stable ABI compromise that would allow drive reuse between kernel upgrades. I have little hope for improvement.
The industry is in desperate need of new competition to give them all a much needed kick in the butt. That’s not going to happen though. In a way new competition could come in the form of Fuchsia devices, even though it’s still google. If they manage to light a fire under the crusty linux devs who’ve been impeding kernel solutions then so much the better. But who really knows whether google will actually manage to address all of android’s lifecycle problems and uphold FOSS values or if they’re just building a new monster.