Let’s go back to talking about potential news of Android 13 after a few hours from the last time: this time, always the good Mishaal Rahman of Esper has found traces of the possible arrival of the native support for spatial audio complete with tracking of head movements on compatible devices. Everything starts from the update of the HAL (Hardware Abstraction Layer) Audio to version 7.1 which introduces the API for real-time adjustment of the latency of the output sound stream. Variable latency is one of the key mechanisms on which spatial audio is based.
Spatial audio is a type of 3D effect that, we could say, provides directionality to the sound. On some particularly high-end Bluetooth headphones and earphones, including Apple’s AirPods Max and AirPods Pro, position sensors are included (such as accelerometers and gyroscopes) that track the movement of the user’s head and are able to modulate the sound. so that it comes from the desired direction, with a virtual field of 360 ° along the X, Y and Z axes. Spatial audio is already partially supported in Android 12L, so it is quite plausible to expect full integration into Android 13.
The source found that they are at least expected two latency control profiles: FREE which has no limitation of any kind, and LOW which is a more or less low latency mode compatible with head tracking, typically less than 100ms. Given what we have said before on Android 12L, it is unlikely that Google will back down, so we would like to indicate that the arrival of the functionality in the stable version is quite probable; but it is never said – some unexpected bug or problem could crop up that messes up the system developers’ plans.
We recall that at present Google has released two Developer Preview of Android 13; four betas will follow, the first of which should arrive within days, on a monthly basis. We will then arrive with the latest beta in July. The so-called “platform stability” should already be activated in June: this means that no new features will be added and we will focus on refining the user experience until the release of the stable version, which should arrive on Pixels around September / October. .
