Android 13 beta 1 allows you to modify copied text before copying it into a new document.
Currently, Android 13’s newest release allows users to modify the text they’ve just copied, which is a significant quality-of-life improvement.
Copying and copying text now displays a little bubble in the corner of your screen, as discovered by Android Police on the recently released Android 13 Beta 1 build. In order to alter the contents of the clipboard before you paste it, just press the bubble. A new button displays if you’ve copied a link, and clicking it takes you directly to the destination page in Google Chrome.
Essentially a text version of the screenshot editing box we’ve seen on phones since Android 11 is this functionality. It’s not uncommon for new smartphones to include simple features like cropping and mark-up, or more complex options like shooting a continuous scrolling screenshot before saving it. Since its inception, I’ve had to utilise the screenshot editing window, but I can’t picture it being much more convenient than Google’s text version.
Here’s a predicament I’ve encountered several times, and one in which you may have found yourself. Then you copy and paste it only to discover that you accidentally picked too much text or omitted a word or two at the end. Using this option would save me a lot of time and aggravation.
As with the screenshot editing feature, you only have so much time to open the editing window before it vanishes forever. That seems like a reasonable amount of time to rectify an evident error, but I’d need to test this feature out to be sure. You’ll have to see how rapidly you can sift over everything you’ve copied since, unlike a screenshot, which always comes out as a certain size, there may be too much to analyse quickly during that time.
In the first public beta of Android 13, there’s a lot more to uncover. There are even more granular permissions for the sorts of data that various applications may access, or the ability to access your smart home equipment without unlocking your phone, for instance. It’s up to you whether or not you’re willing to risk exposing yourself to possibly flawed code, or if you’d prefer to wait until later this year for the final product. At Google I/O next month, we may expect to learn more about future betas and public release dates.