Change is coming to the world of Android. While the operating system’s development and release cycle had been operating on a nice, predictable pattern for years, things are starting to shake up. Android 15 already did things a little differently by landing in stable only after the new Pixel 9 phones arrived, and we just reported that Google is seriously hitting the gas when it comes to Android 16, aiming to get a release out in Q2 of 2025.
That’s normally the time of year when we’d be playing with may be the second Developer Preview of the next Android release, with eye to the horizon for the formal start of betas, so thinking about having the next edition of Android ready to go so very early in the year is going to be a big change. On one hand, that just means we get to experience Google’s latest improvements to Android earlier than ever, but it could also have some not-immediately-obvious on you and how you shop for phones.
Maybe you’re on an upgrade cycle that has you checking out Samsung’s latest Galaxy flagship when it debuts in the early months of the year. If that would mean Samsung launching with last-gen Android, it’s far from inconceivable that the company could shift its own schedule around to follow Google’s. That’s not the end of the world, but could mean more people waiting a few months longer to upgrade, still using an older phone.
Of course, outside the general change to Google’s timetable, there’s Android 16 itself to consider, and whether early access to this release in particular is something worth getting excited about. We want to know:
Are you excited for an early Android 16 release?
59 votes
Even at this early stage, we already have a lot of ideas about what Android 16 features we might be able to look forward to, and that’s a list that’s only going to get longer and more detailed as we get closer to whenever Google’s ready to give us a shot at its first Developer Preview. That’s feeling like it could easily be before the end of the year, so we may not have much longer to wait, at all.
Are your feelings about Android 16 and Google’s accelerated timetable a little more nuanced than our poll lets you express? Sound off in detail in the comments below.
