The next major leap in Google's mobile operating system has arrived! Android 16 Beta 1 is now rolling out to Pixel devices, packed with exciting new features and improvements.
What's New in Android 16 Beta 1?
This initial beta release introduces a host of changes focused on enhancing the user experience and expanding the capabilities of the OS. Let's explore the key highlights:
Live Updates: Stay Informed in Real-Time
Android 16 introduces "Live Updates," a new class of notifications for ongoing activities like ride-sharing, food delivery, and navigation. A new "ProgressStyle" notification template delivers a consistent user experience with support for custom icons, segments, milestones, and more.
Enhanced Large Screen Support: Goodbye Letterboxing
Google is phasing out the ability for apps to restrict screen orientation and resizability on larger screens. This change, which *doesn't* apply to games, will encourage more fluid and flexible app experiences on devices with screens wider than 600dp. Apps targeting API level 36 will have resizable app windows, making it crucial to ensure your existing UIs scale seamlessly across different aspect ratios.
Advanced Professional Video Codec (APV): High-Quality Video Recording
Android 16 adds support for the APV codec (specifically the APV 422-10 profile), aimed at providing near-lossless video quality. This supports high-bitrate 2K, 4K, and 8K content, a low complexity encoding system, multiple decode and re-encodes, HDR10/10+, and more. This is designed for high-end video recording and post-production workflows.
Generic Ranging APIs: Precise Device Positioning
New Generic Ranging APIs utilize BLE channel sounding, BLE RSSI-based ranging, Ultra-Wideband, and WiFi round trip time to accurately determine distance and angle between devices on compatible hardware.
Predictive Back Gesture: Now Enabled by Default
Google is pushing predictive back adoption by making it default for apps targeting Android 16. 3-button navigation is now also fully supported. Long pressing the back button now triggers a preview animation.
Other Notable Additions
- Night Mode Camera Indicator: New support for apps to detect and switch to a night mode camera session.
- Vertical Text Rendering: Support for vertical text rendering for better support of diverse languages.
- Accessibility: New method that allow apps to indicate when input in a field is required for accessibility services.
- Gemini Integration: Further work towards integration with Gemini across more OEMs, devices, and form factors.
How to Get Android 16 Beta 1
The Android 16 Beta 1 is available as an over-the-air update for devices enrolled in the Android Beta Program. If you're already on Android 16 Developer Preview 2 or the Android Beta program, you'll receive the update automatically. If you're on the Android 15 QPR2 Beta and want to exit the Beta program, you'll need to ignore the update to Android 16 and wait for the final release of QPR2.
Supported Devices
The Android 16 Beta 1 system images are available for the following Pixel devices:
- Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, Pixel 6a
- Pixel 7, Pixel 7 Pro, Pixel 7a
- Pixel Tablet
- Pixel Fold
- Pixel 8, Pixel 8 Pro, Pixel 8a
- Pixel 9, Pixel 9 Pro, Pixel 9 Pro XL, and Pixel Pro Fold.
You can also test on the Android Emulator.
As always, you can provide feedback via the Android Beta Feedback app on Pixel devices, and join the discussion in the Android Beta community on Reddit.
