Android TV OS powers billions of screens worldwide, allowing people to watch content on all platforms, play games, and enjoy all the other features of a smart TV. Now Google is updating the operating system with Android 13 for TV. This release brings improved performance and accessibility for developers, which should help make Android TV a better overall experience.
Released on December 2, Android 13 for TV is the latest version of Android TV OS, which primarily brings performance and quality improvements to the platform. Namely, Google has made improvements to the AudioManager API so developers can “anticipate audio attribute support for the active audio device and select the optimal format without starting playback.” Additionally, users can change the default resolution and refresh rates on HDMI source devices to improve the playback experience. Finally, HDMI state changes can now be used by HDMI source devices to “save power and pause content in response to HDMI state changes”. So if you have a Chromecast but switch to an Xbox or another console, the Chromecast might sleep knowing you’re no longer on that HDMI input.
On the accessibility and home typing side, the first thing to note is that the InputDevice API supports different keyboard layouts, so you might be able to use a Dvorak keyboard now if you want. Additionally, a new Audio Descriptions API allows applications to determine user preferences for audio descriptions, making the captioning experience seamless across the board.
Finally, with the HDMI and tuner features come a few new additions and changes. This includes better HDMI state changes, better HDMI source language selection, HAL 2.0 tuner performance optimizations, and a “framework for interactive TV use cases as an extension of the TIF.”
If you’re a developer looking to tinker with any of these new features, you can only get them through the ADT-3 SDK or Android Emulator for TV. To get started, you can follow the instructions and learn a bit more about what Android 13 for TV has to offer.
