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Google is launching the first developer preview of Android 16 to speed up feature rollouts in devices.
This is a big change in the Android rollout schedule, as over the past few years Google has released its first Android developer beta around Q2, with a stable version released after July. With the new timeline, the stable version of Android 16 will be released in Q2 2025.
Google likely wants to reduce fragmentation, where different devices run different versions of Android, with the move. In competition with iOS, this architecture will also likely allow device manufacturers to quickly make core Android features available to more users.
However, Google will need to ensure that the first major release of Android 16 is stable so developers can build on it without having to worry about their apps crashing.
The company added that apart from releasing a major SDK version in Q2 2025, it will also have a minor SDK release in Q4 2025 with new APIs for developers, possibly to release features and functionality to developers on an accelerated basis.
“We are planning the major release before the quarter (Q2 instead of Q3 in previous years) to better align with the launch schedule of devices across our ecosystem, so more devices can get the major release of Android sooner,” Matthew McCullough, Vice President Head of Product Management for the Android Developer Ecosystem he said in a blog post.
In terms of features, the first developer preview of Android 16 offers a built-in image picker for apps. Using this functionality, apps can ask users to access selected photos from local and cloud storage.
Google is also releasing a developer preview of Health Connect with health records-enabled APIs, which means apps can read and write medical records in FHIR (Fast Healthcare Interoperability Resource) format — a standard used to exchange health records between different systems — With the user. permission.
The company announced the Google Pixel 8 series in September 2023 and the Google Pixel 9 series in August 2024. The Pixel 9 got Android 15 in October this year. It’s not clear if Google will continue to release these two API versions annually for subsequent releases and how it might impact the Pixel’s release cycle.
said Siang Zhao, Vice President and General Manager of Android Platform Android Faithful Podcast In October, the company’s previous approach to point releases and API release timeline made it difficult for developers and device manufacturers to keep up. With the new release cycle, the company will release a major API change earlier in the year, and will only add APIs for the Q4 2025 release so developers don’t face any issues.
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