While Android 13 might not have brought a complete system-wide design overhaul, it definitely introduced subtle changes, including a new image picker that integrates both local and cloud-stored photos. This negates the need to provide additional permission to the app for media access on the picker.
Now, with a recent update, Google Voice has become one of the first apps to get this new Android 13 image picker. This image picker was originally announced with the very first preview of Android 13. Apparently, it also supports older versions of Android, so it isn't exclusive to Android 13 running devices. However, it does require the apps to be updated with the version that supports them.
The new image picker for Google Voice is arriving via a server-side update
Google says that with this new picker, the privacy of users' photos and videos will increase, as they now don't need to provide permission to view users' media files. As per 9To5Google, Google Voice is the only app with this new image picker at the moment. The update with the new image picker is arriving via a server-side update for Google Voice on Android.
You can view this image picker in the Google Voice app when you hit the gallery icon to send images or videos. There is also a camera icon that will open the native camera app to take photos. This change was noticed in the Google Voice app version 10.03 on the Samsung Galaxy Z Fold 4, as well as on the Google Voice v10.17 on a Pixel 7 Pro. For some, the old image picker is still visible, even on the latest version.
If this seems like a server-side update and you don't see the new image picker, you can check out the Play Store and see if there is a new update for the Google Voice pending or not.
