Android 13 Could Finally Give Us a Feature in Android 11

Google said that it will provide Android a new feature more than two years ago. A new media player was added to Android 11, which had just been released, and it now occupies an additional space above your notifications. A rapid output switcher was introduced to the player's upper right corner as part of this makeover, and it was meant to display both Bluetooth and Cast devices for "seamless transfer"; however, the latter never displayed for anybody after Android 11 became stable. After two years and two iterations of Android, evidence has emerged suggesting that Cast devices may soon be added to the rapid output switcher.

The output switcher may now display Cast devices on Android 13 alongside your preferred earphones or your automobile, as spotted by Esper's Mishaal Rahman. Developers must incorporate certain code (as a component of the MediaRouter Jetpack module) into their apps to make this happen. This library has been in existence since 2020. On Android 11 and 12, however, we haven't seen a single app using seamless transfer, and according to Mishaal Rahman, it appears that Google remotely deactivated the feature in earlier releases.

However, it appears that Cast devices are prepared to be included in Android 13's media output selection. On several devices running the most recent version of Android with seamless transfer enabled, Mishaal Rahman loaded a customised version of the Universal Android Music Player software (available on Github). All Cast devices are displayed alongside Bluetooth headphones and any other output devices while playing media. This enables you to switch between speakers without having to unlock your phone and go to your audio app as you go between rooms. Mishaal Rahman even managed to enable Stream Expansion on a Google Pixel 6 Pro, allowing you to simultaneously play your media on numerous speakers.

Mishaal Rahman discovered after doing more research that some of this functionality will be implemented automatically. Remote-to-remote media transfers will "roll out to Android phones automatically without needing to update your app through a Google Play services update coming soon," according to an update note on the most recent version of the Google Cast SDK. This means that you will be able to switch between different Cast speakers right from the media output selector in your phone's media controls. However, functionality for switching from Bluetooth speakers or headphones to Cast devices has to be added by developers.

After originally describing it to developers as part of Android 11, it's unclear why it took Google so long to implement seamless transfer for media controls. It appears that some components of the UI weren't yet ready to handle the functionality. It's encouraging to see that everything is in place on Google's end and that part of it will function without any app updates, even if it will still take some time for applications to be updated to offer you the complete capability on your Android 13 phone.