It seems like we will see one more Samsung feature make its way to Android 13. Esper's editor Mishaal Rahman has tracked multiple threads in the Chromium Gerrit by a Samsung engineer, which shows that Google could add the S-Pen's handwriting-to-text feature on Chrome with Android 13.
Apparently, this feature will make Google Chrome on Android 13 more tablet-friendly. Android Police notes that this new handwriting-to-text feature on Android 13 will at least be available on editable, non-password text fields on Google Chrome and WebViews. Interestingly, owners of Samsung devices with an S-Pen running Android 13 can already use this feature.
In order to be used with a Samsung device, you need to make use of the Samsung Keyboard app as only it can connect to Chrome to provide the DirectWriting service. This is done by using a combination of an API called DirectWriting and a commit that enables handwriting-to-text input into Chromium.
While Samsung is working on adding S-Pen gestures to handwriting-to-text mode through Chrome, other Android devices will only be able to use a set of platform-level stylus writing APIs with Android 13. However, they need to be enabled through a developer option toggle.
H/T to @_dinsan for first spotting the code change adding the feature flag 'stylus-input': https://t.co/9tutA5vYSF pic.twitter.com/je8hxwU32N
— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) July 21, 2022
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