Android 13 DP1 brings a redesigned media player UI, preps “Media Tap To Transfer” feature

The first developer preview of Android 13 is officially out. While the final release won’t come out until later this year, the first preview gives us a broad outline of changes and features that are coming in the next major release of Android. From updated privacy features and improvements to Material You theming to new language controls and optimizations for large screen devices, Android 13 brings many exciting changes. In addition, the latest version also showcases various improvements coming to the media playback experience, including a redesigned media output picker UI, a brand new media play UI, and more.

New media player UI

With Android 11, Google consolidated the media player controls into the notification shade. In Android 12, the media player gained support for dynamic theming, but its overall design remained more or less the same. With the Android 13 Developer Preview 1, though, Google is preparing a fresh design (via Esper). The new media player is larger and puts a prominent play/pause button in the right corner. It also shows a progress bar with track info displayed on the left side. The album art is missing for some reason, but that’s likely to change in the future update. Note that this new media player UI isn’t live in the Developer Preview 1 and needs to be enabled by a SystemUI flag.

Screenshots credit: Esper

Redesigned media output Picker

Earlier this month, we learned that Android 13 might ship with a redesigned audio output picker. This new design is now live in the Android 13 DP1. For the unaware, the audio output picker is a button that appears in the upper right corner of the media player. When you click on it, it brings up a menu with all the available devices that you can route sound output to.

The new design replaces the old volume slider with a rounded and bubbly one. It now also highlights the currently selected audio device with a checkmark.

Media Tap To Transfer

Finally, the first developer preview of Android 13 contains references for a feature called “Media Tap To Transfer.” We first spotted this upcoming feature in January, and it’s still a work in progress in Android 13 DP1. It appears to be Google’s answer to Apple’s “Hand off audio” feature, allowing users to hold an iPhone close to a HomePod speaker to transfer media playback.

Screenshots credit: Android Police

When you’re playing media on your smartphone or tablet and move close to a compatible Cast-enabled device, Android 13 will display a “media tap to transfer” chip. This will allow users to transfer the media playback from their current device to the receiver device, say, a speaker or smart TV. Like the new media player UI, this feature isn’t live in Android 13 DP1.

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