Google hosted an entire show dedicated to Android last month to announce Android 16 and it's finally available for Pixel 6 and newer phones. While the update doesn’t bring the new Material 3 Expressive design yet, it adds some new features that enhances privacy and improves the overall Android user experience. Here's everything new on Android 16.
Android 16: Key New Features
From progress-centric notifications to new privacy and security APIs and permissions, Android 16 brings a decent set of features to the table. Here are all the key features in Android 16.
- Progress-centric notifications: It's similar to Live Activities on iPhones. Apps whose core functionality involves updating users frequently can use this feature to show the progress of a particular task in real-time. For example, food delivery apps, Uber, Google Maps, etc.
- Adaptive Refresh Rate support: Android is also getting new Adaptive Refresh Rate APIs. Many phones have supported ARR for years, but Android 16 adds platform-level support for the same.
- Search in Media Picker: Android's Media Picker now has a search option where users can search for particular photos. This solves a long-standing problem with the media picker, where finding a photo could be incredibly hard.
- Improved Predictive back gestures: Android 16 brings system-wide Predictive back gestures, including support in the three-button navigation menu.
- Privacy and Security APIs and Permissions: Android 16 brings lots of privacy features like Privacy Sandbox, Local Network Permissions, and more.
- Advanced Protection Mode: Android 16 brings Advanced Protection Mode which, when enabled, locks down certain features that could be exploited by bad actors and pose a significant privacy risk. It disallows app installs from third-party sources, enables Safe browsing, and defaults the default USB action to charging only.
- New Camera APIs and improvements: Android 16 includes new camera APIs. Some of them are Hybrid auto-exposure, Colour temperature and tint adjustments, Night mode detection, UltraHDR, and more.
- Pixel VIPs app: Earlier this week, Google started rolling out a new app called Pixel VIPs to Android 16 users. The premise of the app is to help users stay connected with your loved ones. The app suggests things to do together, displays all the calls at one plays, and also offers a widget to place on the home screen.
The new Android iteration introduces a new API for a seamless user experience, as well as improves performance and security. It's possible that the Material 3 Expressive design could be part of a future feature drop. We expect it to make its way in the September feature drop, once Google irons out some glitches and inconsistencies in the current version, which surprisingly are few in numbers.
Android 16: Supported Pixel Devices
The following Pixel phones will get Android 16 first before other devices. The Pixel 6 series is the oldest device to get the update, since Google recently extended software support for the model by two more years.
- Pixel 9 / 9 Pro / 9 Pro XL / 9a
- Pixel 9 Pro Fold
- Pixel 8 / 8 Pro / 8a
- Pixel 7 / 7 Pro / 7a
- Pixel 6 / 6 Pro / 6a
Android 16 should also eventually roll out to Samsung, Nothing, and OnePlus phones in the coming months. Considering Google's working with multiple OEMs, you can expect it to roll out to a host of relatively modern devices including the Galaxy S25, OnePlus 13/13s, and Nothing Phone (3a), sometime by the end of June or July. For the rest of devices, it could take a few more months for the full rollout.
