Android 13: notification and media permissions

Android 13 is the release where an app had to ask before it could send a notification. It also split the storage permission into images, video and audio, and shipped a photo picker that needs no permission. For developers the rest was a short list: per-app languages, themed icons, and stricter intent delivery.

At a glance

Google pushed Android 13 to AOSP and began the Pixel rollout on 15 August 2022. Its announcement named Samsung, Asus, HMD, Motorola, OnePlus, OPPO, Sony, Xiaomi and others for later that year. Google’s first phones sold with it were the Pixel 7 and Pixel 7 Pro, announced on 6 October and in US stores from 13 October.

The public name is just Android 13. Tiramisu is the internal dessert name, and from this release it is no longer hidden: the constant is TIRAMISU, not a single letter, and Android Studio’s SDK Manager lists the platform as “Android 13.0 (“Tiramisu”)”. Build IDs start with T (TP1A).

Google announced Android 13 with Developer Preview 1 on 10 February 2022. Beta 1 followed on 26 April, and Beta 3 reached platform stability on 8 June, freezing the API 33 SDK and app-facing behaviour. The two developer previews and four betas are the parts below this overview.

What it brought

• Per-app languages. Users pick a language per app in “App languages”, while the system stays in another. An app declares android:localeConfig to appear there and can set the language itself with LocaleManager.setApplicationLocales(). AppCompat 1.6 backports the API.
• Themed app icons. An app that adds a monochrome layer to its adaptive icon gets tinted to match the wallpaper, when the user turns on “Themed icons” and the launcher supports it. Ars Technica noted that the feature was still in beta at launch.
• Clipboard preview. Copying shows a small confirmation with a preview of the content, like a screenshot thumbnail; tapping it opens an editor.
• Foreground Services Task Manager. The bottom of Quick Settings shows how many apps run a foreground service, with a “Stop” button for each.
• Quick Settings placement API. An app can ask the user, in one system dialog, to add its custom tile.
• Media controls. For apps targeting 33, the system builds the media player buttons from PlaybackState actions instead of the notification’s action list.
• Audio. Built-in Bluetooth LE Audio on compatible devices, MIDI 2.0 over USB, spatial audio with head tracking, and AudioManager APIs that tell an app how its audio will be routed.
• Graphics and text. RuntimeShader with AGSL, COLRv1 vector emoji, up to 200% faster hyphenation, better line heights for non-Latin scripts, and phrase-based Japanese line breaks.
• Runtime. JNI calls up to 2.5x faster, mostly non-blocking reference processing, and a first set of OpenJDK 11 library APIs (String.strip(), Optional.isEmpty() and more), also sent to Android 12 through the ART module. A garbage collector built on the kernel’s userfaultfd was not in the release: Google said it would reach Android 13 devices in a later Google Play system update.
• Wi-Fi 7. ScanResult.WIFI_STANDARD_11BE, new in API 33, lets an app tell 802.11be access points apart in scan results. Whether a phone connects over Wi-Fi 7 depends on its hardware.
• Predictive back. New APIs let an app say ahead of time that it handles back, so the system can preview the destination. In Android 13 the animation is only behind a developer option.
• Tablets. It builds on Android 12L: a taskbar with an app drawer, and multi-window enabled for all apps on large screens.

Security and privacy

• Photo picker. A system screen where the user picks specific photos or videos, and only those reach the app. The app declares no permission. The same picker reached Android 11 and 12 through a Google Play system update.
• Clipboard auto-clear. The clipboard is wiped a while after the last copy. In AOSP the default is 3600000 ms, one hour, adjustable by the device through DeviceConfig. Apps that copy passwords should set ClipDescription.EXTRA_IS_SENSITIVE so the preview hides the content.
• Restricted settings. An app installed from a local or downloaded file cannot be granted accessibility or notification listener access until the user opens its App info page and picks “Allow restricted settings”. AOSP sets this on installs whose source is PACKAGE_SOURCE_LOCAL_FILE or PACKAGE_SOURCE_DOWNLOADED_FILE, so installs made by an app store are not flagged.
• Intent matching. An exported component of an app targeting 33 only receives intents from other apps that match one of its <intent-filter> elements. See below for what to change.
• Exported receivers. registerReceiver() takes RECEIVER_EXPORTED or RECEIVER_NOT_EXPORTED, so a runtime receiver no longer has to be open to every app.
• Platform. Device log access needs the user’s approval on each request. The Android Virtualization Framework (pKVM) arrives as an optional feature for isolated workloads. APK Signature Scheme v3.1 lets key rotation target Android 13 and later only. Keystore and KeyMint report errors as typed exceptions that say whether a retry can help. Bluetooth and Ultra-wideband became Mainline modules, so Google can update them through Google Play system updates.

Permissions

New runtime permissions in Android 13:

The notification permission reaches every app, but how depends on the target:

Media sessions and apps that self-manage calls (Notification.CallStyle) are exempt. Foreground services can still start without the permission, but their notification only shows in the Task Manager.

Images and video share one dialog if requested together. An app that held READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE gets the new media permissions automatically when it updates its target.

Two more changes:

• Exact alarms. USE_EXACT_ALARM is granted at install and cannot be revoked, but it is meant only for alarm clocks, timers and calendars, and a Google Play policy restricts it to them. Everyone else keeps SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM, which the user can revoke.
• Giving permissions back. Context.revokeSelfPermissionsOnKill() lets an app drop runtime permissions it no longer needs. It takes effect when the app’s processes are killed, not while it is in the foreground.

What changed for your app

All apps on Android 13

Apps targeting API 33

Intent matching is not enforced for components without any intent filter, intents from inside the same app, and intents from the system or root.

What lasted

• Granular media access stayed, and Android 14 narrowed it further: READ_MEDIA_VISUAL_USER_SELECTED lets the user share only some photos.
• Exact alarms. From Android 14, SCHEDULE_EXACT_ALARM is denied by default for most new installs of apps targeting 33 or higher, which pushes apps to USE_EXACT_ALARM or inexact alarms.
• Exported receivers. The flag that was optional here became mandatory for context-registered receivers in apps targeting Android 14.
• Restricted settings grew. The Android 15 CDD requires them for device admin, display over other apps, usage access, the dialer and SMS roles and SMS permissions, besides accessibility and notification listeners.
• Predictive back left the developer option in Android 15, for apps that opted in.
• The photo picker now also reaches Android 4.4 to 10 as a backported module through Google Play services.

Worth knowing

• The Easter egg reuses Android 12’s clock; its unlock setting is still called egg_mode_s. Set the hands to 1:00 and the code logs "13:00" before bubbles in Material You colours fill the screen. A long press cycles through 14 emoji sets, from fruit to zodiac signs.
• One set never shipped. AOSP keeps it commented out with the note “this one is too much”.
• TIRAMISU is the first constant spelled out as a dessert since Android 5.1’s LOLLIPOP_MR1; 6.0 to 12L used letters. In AOSP its comment is one word: “Tiramisu.”
• Google first set the API 33 deadline as 1 August 2023 for new apps and 1 November 2023 for updates. It then moved both to 31 August, “unifying the dates to August 31 every year”.