Google confirms shorter wait for Android 16 in 2025

The Android 15 consumer release may have arrived later than expected this year, with knock-on effects for users with non-Pixel phones, but Google promises to get its act together for next-year’s release.

Today the company confirmed Android 16 will launch in Q2 next year (somewhere between April 1 and June 31), in order to be better aligned with the company’s hardware release schedule.

This year Google Pixel 9 owners, who in previous years would have had access to Android 15 out of the box, had to wait a couple of months before the update dropped in mid-October.

The wording of Google’s announcement today also seems to hint that the earlier August release schedule for flagship Pixel phones we saw in 2024 is here to stay.

It’s also good news for owners of third-party Android device owners, beyond the Pixel range, because it means the manufacturers (Samsung, OnePlus, etc.) will have access to Android 16 earlier.

In a blog post today, Google said: “We’re planning the major release for Q2 rather than Q3 to better align with the schedule of device launches across our ecosystem, so more devices can get the major release of Android sooner.”

Furthermore, Google says it is releasing two SDK releases for Android next year, with the second coming in the final three months of the year.

Google adds: “Next year, we’ll have a major release in Q2 and a minor release in Q4, both of which will include new developer APIs. The Q2 major release will be the only release in 2025 to include behaviour changes that can affect apps.

“The Q4 minor release will pick up feature updates, optimisations, and bug fixes since the major release. It will also include new developer APIs, but will not include any app-impacting behaviour changes.”

Google didn’t detail any plans for new features during the blog post, but we’re unlikely to behind hearing about those until early 2025.