A long-running iOS feature may hop over to Android 13 for a change

March 1, 2022

Mar 01, 2022, 2:25 AM

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An iOS feature may hop over to Android 13 for a change

Google’s I/O developer conference is fast approaching and with it come the firs leaks about new Android 13 features. The 2022 Android edition could be called Tiramisu and it will offer new themes, built-in QR code scanning, faster connectivity updates, easier sharing, and other updates big and small.

Among the small Android 13 feature updates counts the latest leak, courtesy of Mishaal Rahman, that stipulates Google may be adding a brightness control for the camera flash at long last, for the times when it’s being used as a torch.

Apple has had the option to adjust the iPhone’s torch brightness for a while now in iOS, while Samsung went ahead and simply implemented it on its own in its One UI overlay. Google may finally follow suit to allow this on a system level for all Android phones, but it seems that only future ones will be able to take advantage of the potential new Android 13 option.

Samsung’s Torch Brightness settings

That’s because the flash brightness control entries in the leaked Android 13 APIs would require a hardware interface that not all phones would have installed with their camera packs. The CameraManager class in the Android 13 code introduces the getTorchStrengthLevel and turnOnTorchWithStrengthLevel methods to the mix that so far only included an on/off switch, which are pretty self-explanatory. The second option would turn the flash on with an intensity set beforehand, while the first would allow you to adjust it on the fly.

Unfortunately, after parsing the code, Mr Rahman is of the opinion that the Android 13’s system-level torch light intensity option would make a cameo on the upcoming Pixel phone(s) that are expected to be unveiled at Google’s I/O and then eventually trickle down to Android phone makers that don’t offer this feature in their interface overlay, so your good ol’ handset might still not be able to do it, even when it gets updated to Android 13.