Google Chrome to offer handwriting-to-text on Android 13

• Google is anticipated to release its first tablet in the near future.
• The tablet Google previewed at its I/O conference earlier this year will ship with Android 13.
• Samsung devices running Android 13 and equipped with a S Pen may already make advantage of handwriting-to-text mode.

Google is anticipated to release its first tablet in the near future. It’s anticipated that the tablet Google previewed at its I/O conference earlier this year will ship with Android 13.

And to make the Android tablet experience more streamlined, the company is developing additional features.

Since Android is an open-source operating system, tablets from other brands will also have these functionalities.

A Samsung engineer started a few threads in the Chromium Gerrit that aim to implement stylus handwriting-to-text input on Android T, or Android 13, at the very least on editable, non-password text fields in Chrome and WebViews that are based on Chrome.

The technical editor for Esper Mishaal Rahman has been following these threads.

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Samsung is working with Google to add stylus handwriting-to-text support in Chrome for Android and Android WebViews. On Samsung devices with an S Pen, this uses their DirectWriting API. On Android 13+, this will use Android's new stylus writing APIs.https://t.co/zpfvg2Psts

— Mishaal Rahman (@MishaalRahman) July 21, 2022

It appears that Samsung handsets running Android 13 and equipped with an S Pen may already make advantage of the feature.

These devices use an internal DirectWriting API, and a contribution has been integrated into Chromium that enables handwriting input as text using this API.

Through the Chromium Gerrit, Samsung is still striving to include S Pen gestures in the handwriting-to-text mode.

Most Android devices will make use of the stylus writing APIs in Android 13. Currently, the overarching input method must support the APIs and the developer option toggle must be set.

Future Gboard and other keyboard app updates are anticipated to include more details about this functionality.

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