Since releasing Android 15 in September, the Android development team has been hard at work on the next major release, and today it is announcing the first developer preview for Android 16.
According to the team, this release marks the start of a faster release cycle for Android APIs. Previously, the major API release would happen in Q3, but next year it will happen in Q2. This better aligns with the device launch schedule and will allow more devices to get the Android release sooner, the team explained.
Due to the API being released earlier, the Android team recommends developers do compatibility testing a few months earlier to ensure apps are ready in time.
After the Q2 release, there will be another major API release in Q4 that will include developer APIs and feature updates, optimizations, and bug fixes, but won’t include new behavior changes that would affect apps.
Additionally, there will still be quarterly Android releases, and the Q1 and Q3 updates that come between the API releases will include incremental updates, the Android team explained.
In terms of new features in the operating system itself, new additions to Android in this developer preview include:
- The ability to embed the photo picker into an app’s view hierarchy, so that users can select media without needing to provide an app with overly broad permissions
- Support for health records in Health Connect
- The latest version of the Privacy Sandbox on Android
The Android development team also shared that it hopes to achieve platform stability by March 2025 to give app developers plenty of time to test their apps before the final release, typically in late summer or early fall.
