Finally, Android 13 will ask your permission to show notifications

As another developer preview of Android 13 is released, Google has announced that it's finally introducing a way to manage new notifications, with a prompt.

According to a blog post, whenever you open a new app for the first time, a message box will appear, asking you to approve or deny any future notifications from the app.

This is a feature that's appeared in Apple's devices since 2010 with iOS 4, so it's good to see Android catch up on a feature that's been requested for over a decade, though it's baffling that Google took this long.

Analysis: Lucky 13 for notifications

Google likes to take its time when it comes to Android, and a notification prompt is the latest in a long line of features that users have been wishing for.

For years, users had been wanting the company to offer official themes, and a way to change their color scheme across Android while having them adapt to the apps that they would use each day.

While Android 12 brought this out with Material You, there's plenty of room for refinements, as buttons and menus seem bigger than necessary.

So when it comes to how notifications look with these new themes, they look huge and not easy on the eye, especially if you pick the lime green theme.

But thanks to Android 13, it looks like more improvements to the themes are coming. Combine this with the new option to hide notifications from new apps at the start, and it could be a release that could satisfy old and new users who have been holding off from updating their phones.

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