This was no joke, Google is actually changing the Android release timeline. The first developer preview of a new version would arrive around February–March. Not anymore. The first developer preview of Android 16 is now released, much ahead of schedule.
Google is reiterating that Android 16 will arrive in the second quarter (April to June) of next year, followed by a smaller new Android release in the fourth quarter (October to December), which we believe will be dubbed Android 16.1 or 16.5 or Will be done. the sort of. It will “pick up feature updates, optimizations, and bug fixes” but “will not include app-impacting behavior changes”.
And once again the company says that the purpose of these changes is to “better align with the schedule of device launches in the Android ecosystem”, “so that more devices can get major Android releases sooner”.
The first developer preview includes new APIs that make the photo picker feel like a more integrated part of the app. There are APIs supporting health records, allowing apps to read and write medical records in FHIR format with explicit user consent. There is also a new version of the Privacy Sandbox.
Expect another developer preview next month, followed by a first beta in January, a second beta in February, then a third beta in late March that will provide “platform stability” (when the final SDK/NDK APIs will be distributed with the final internal ) APIs and app-facing system behavior). There’s another beta after that in April, followed by a final release at some point in Q2, as the image above clearly shows.
As the name suggests, developer previews are only for app developers to run. Since the first beta, you can also join in on the fun by enrolling your Pixel in the Android beta program.
