Android 16 will be available far sooner than you may have imagined

In IT circles, Android releases are somewhat of a celebration because new features and improved user experiences accompany every major OS upgrade. The inventiveness we had become used to with earlier Android versions has, however, diminished in recent years, and every update feels like a small step up from the one before it.

The newest operating system for the majority of Android phones, Android 15, was not even released with Google's most recent Pixel 9 handsets. When Android 15 QPR1 Beta was released in August, we didn't even see it running on Pixel 9 devices. We have been used to the practice of phones being released concurrently with significant operating system updates, but going forward, we will have to adjust to yet another shift in Google's approach to creating and delivering Android versions.

With a major release scheduled for Q2 and a minor release scheduled for Q4, Google revealed today that it will release two SDK versions in 2025. Android 16 will be the main release, marking the first time in over ten years that Google will release a major Android OS before the third quarter of any given year.

It's unknown if the minor SDK will continue as just another Android 16 update or have its own marketing moniker like 16.1, as Mishaal Rahman pointed up in his post for Android Authority.

With this development, our September report that Google might be altering the release timeline for its main Android version has come to pass. We learnt earlier this week that Android 16 will probably be called Baklava, which is a significant break from the naming scheme of earlier iterations. In accordance with the previous alphabetical naming scheme, its name ought to have begun with a "W."
The possible Android 16 experience

Numerous improvements and modifications may be included in Android 16 to improve upon Android 15. Previously available only for messaging apps, we might see the ability to place any program inside a floating bubble menu. It's possible that the brightness slider will receive a visual update to better match Android 15's volume settings slider. It seems likely that the Quick Settings panel will get a complete overhaul, which is good news for Android Police.

We anticipated that Android 15 would be a more sophisticated experience that improved upon some of the greatest features of Android 14. We have some ideas about what we would like to see modified from the present Android 15 suite in Android 16, when it is released. Those suggestions include making setting Bluetooth off the standard once more, adding a more straightforward Private Space option, and making new theft prevention capabilities "on" by default. Regarding the Bluetooth toggle in Android 15, it appears that resizable Quick Settings tiles will be included in Android 16. In that case, users will have the option to reposition their most frequently used Quick Settings buttons, continuing the trend of improving the Android experience with each new operating system in a positive but gradual manner. (*)