After releasing two developer betas last year, Google on Thursday introduced the first public beta for Android 16. New features include real-time updates on the lock screen (like Live Activity on iOS), Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec ) for high-quality video recording and a framework for developers to make their apps adaptable to different screen sizes and aspect ratios.
For consumers, support for real-time updates will be the most visible change. Apple introduced Live Activities to show ever-changing updates like delivery status, workouts, or sports scores with iOS 16 in 2022. Android is now adopting this format to allow developers to push real-time updates natively with Android 16.
Google is also adding frameworks and tools to make apps more responsive in terms of design. The company is phasing out size restriction controls for developers, so their apps can look and work better on large screens like tablets and foldable devices.
Android 16 also gets a new Advanced Professional Video (APV) codec for high-quality video recording and post-processing. The company said that this codec will help creators with faster editing capabilities and features like multi-view video and auxiliary video. This is perhaps a direct response to Apple’s ProRes and ProRes Raw formats.
With APV, the company says users can expect “perceptually” lossless quality, which is closer to raw footage. Additionally, the codec will support a range of high bitrate footage down to a few Gbps for 2K, 4K and 8K.
Google is also adding a way to let apps know if the camera within their app should switch to night mode for better quality low-light images. Last year, the company partnered with Instagram to bring this feature to users of select devices.
Android 16 will also bring improvements on the accessibility front, with a new indicator of the mandatory field in the API. With this new feature, apps can tell the user that a specific field is required. Google said this could also be useful for situations where users need to check the terms and conditions box.
Google took a different approach with Android 16 by releasing the first developer preview in November instead of the first quarter of 2025. The company wanted to speed up the Android version update cycle by shipping the final version in the second quarter instead of the third quarter and by shipping a minor update later in the year. the year. This is Google’s effort to ensure that device manufacturers have enough time to release updates and reduce fragmentation of software versions across different devices.
