Android 13 Beta 1 introduces new, more detailed access rights to media files. In particular, while the older version of Android contained all the different types of media in the same category, Android 13 explicitly differentiates between three types of media files: images and photos, videos and audio files.
When the permissions are granted by the user, the applications will have read access to the respective media file types. To simplify the user experience, if an application requests READ_MEDIA_IMAGE and READ_MEDIA_VIDEO at the same time, the system displays a single dialog box for both licenses.
Applications that have access to shared media files will need to be relocated to the new licensing system if they are to continue to run as expected on Android 13. For compatibility with earlier versions of Android, applications must also include the old READ_EXTERNAL_STORAGE license for SDK up to version 32. Android 13 Beta 1 also improves support for determining the best audio format to use for a track. Specifically, a new getAudioDevicesForAttributes () allows developers to retrieve a list of devices that can be used to play the specified audio, and getDirectProfilesForAttributes () tells if an audio stream can be played directly. Other upcoming features in Android 13 already available through developer previews include a new notification permission, support for color vector fonts, text conversion API, Bluetooth LE Audio, MIDI 2.0 via USB, and more. The Privacy Sandbox for Android is roughly equivalent to Apple App Application Tracking, a solution that allows users to prevent an application from tracking them using an ad ID. Google’s approach focuses on preventing cross-tracking between different applications, while still providing a single application with effective means of presenting custom ads. Specifically, these include Themes, Performance Reporting and FLEDGE on Android.
Our goal with the Privacy Sandbox on Android is to develop effective privacy-enhancing advertising solutions where users know their privacy is protected and developers and businesses have the tools to succeed on mobile.
The Topics API supports the so-called interest-based advertising (IBA), where users are shown ads based on their interests, as can be deduced from the applications they used in the past. This differs from contextual advertising in that the ads are displayed based on the content that the user is currently consuming. Performance reporting is similar to Apple’s ATT solution and aims to prevent the use of inter-party IDs, such as device IDs, ad IDs, etc., which can be easily used to track users. Each ad publisher receives its own ID, which is then used to provide summary clicks and / or views for conversion tracking and fraud. FLEDGE is a specific approach to what is commonly referred to as “remarketing” and “target audience”. For example, an app might want to show an ad to a user who left certain products in the shopping cart and remind them to complete the purchase. FLEDGE implements a bidding mechanism to make this possible without sharing user-related IDs between providers. Instead, all user-related information is retained on the device itself and can be used by applications that adopt FLEDGE to participate in the bidding process. As implied above, none of the above approaches has been significantly adopted and it remains to be seen how well they will fare with the advertising industry. For this reason, the current ad ID will be supported for at least two years, says Google.
