There is great anticipation for the release di Android 16 which, as officially announced by Google, will be made available to users well in advance of what is traditionally the roadmap followed by the Menlo Park giant.
The “major release” of what is currently the most widespread OS in the world will in fact no longer be launched towards the end of the third quarter, as usually occurs, but by second quarter next year: this means that in the spring of 2025, between the months of April and June, everyone will have the opportunity to make the much desired download.
As anticipated, this is a break with the patterns usually followed by Googlewhich in the last 12 years has always preferred to release new versions of its mobile operating system between the months of August and October: in this sense, recently, the only exceptions for users were made for Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, released in July 2012 and Android 5.0 Lollipop, available from November 2014. Specifically, in relation to the second quarter, Google carried out releases only for version 1.5 Cupcake, which arrived in April 2009, and for version 2.2 Froyo (May 2010)
“We are planning the diffusion of ours major releases for the second quarter of 2025, rather than the third, so that we can better align with the launch schedule of devices in our ecosystem, so that most of them can receive the main version of Android as soon as possible“, wrote Google in an official press release. This is a habit that is starting to characterize an ever-increasing number of the giants in the sector: apart from Google, which did it with the Pixel 9, we can mention Qualcomm and MediaTek for the launches of their new top of the range SoCs.
With this “major release” some will debut on the OS changes which will also have consequences on the functioning of the apps: new features and new application programming interfaces (Api) will therefore be introduced.
Scheduled for fourth quarter of 2025i.e. between the months of October and December, there is also the launch of a “minor release”, the “Quarterly Platform Release”, which will include optimizations, bug fixes, new features and APIs. As regards the first part of next year, the release of a series of incremental updates is planned in the first and third quarters which will exclusively concern new features
This means that even the tests for Android 16, nicknamed Baklava as per “confectionery tradition” for
denominations of updateswill be anticipated: Google has already warned developers to be ready while waiting for news on the first Developer Preview, as if to say that it will start shortly.