TL;DR Google has just released Android 16 stable for Pixel devices
Other manufacturers can now follow suit with updates for their own device lineups.
The Pixel 6 series and newer, including Google’s foldables and the Pixel tablet, are eligible for today’s update.
Are you ready for the summer of Android 16? We’re just a week into June already, and while we missed the initially rumored June 3 launch, Android 16 is finally making its formal debut, as Google settles into its new release schedule.
Android 16 may not represent a huge overhaul of the mobile operating system we’ve come to know and love, but it does introduce some major efforts to modernize Google’s most important platform, including laying the groundwork for Material 3 Expressive redesigns coming down the pike.
Let’s take a look at what Android’s latest release delivers, and how you can get your hands on it!
Android 16 productivity, accessibility, and safety features For its Sweet Sixteen release, Android is really growing up, and part of that maturity means an increased focus on some of the “boring” stuff that’s nonetheless super-important for our increasingly connected lives. We’ve already gotten of a taste of Android 16 Advanced Protection through Google’s beta program, and now it’s going to have the chance to give a whole lot more users what’s essentially an “idiot-proof” system for locking down your phone.
The genius of Advanced Protection is that it doesn’t overwhelm users with options, and offers a simple one-stop for making some of the most impactful changes that can help secure your mobile experience. Instead of having to hunt down esoteric options like restricting connections over 2G cellular networks and insecure Wi-Fi, Advanced Protection does all that legwork for you.
Notifications are a lot more important than a lot of people probably realize, and can heavily influence how we interact with which apps, when. That makes even subtle changes to them worth paying attention to, but with Android 16 the updates are anything but subtle. In addition to support for upcoming live updates and their ability to keep us informed on the progress of things like delivery orders, we’re also getting new notification grouping to help cut down on the noise and help your most relevant notifications stand out.
Google An example of Live Updates from the Uber Eats app on the AOD (left), lock screen (left middle), status bar (right middle), and heads-up notification (right).
... continue reading