Tl; Dream
- Live updates introduce a new way for Android to allow apps to communicate ongoing processes.
- With today’s release of Android 16, we begin to see support for apps with progress -centered notifications.
- Full live updates support, where these alerts are actually handled differently by the system, will not come until later this year.
Google released just Android 16 Stable, and although there is a lot going on there, there is also a good deal we don’t get yet. Googles delivers many new system and app-level features, but there is much to be announced that there is still a work going on. We can try New stationary mode experience In beta right now, for example, but it does not come to Android 16 users otherwise before a future update. And you’ve probably heard a lot about Material 3 expressions Already, and while we have seen many early previews, it really does not hit Android 16 with full strength before QPR1 lands.
Although it is the big ones, we are also aware of many other Android 16 changes that Google has talked about, but unless you have been careful about all developer-focused Minutiae, it can be easy to lose track of exactly what functionality we can expect and when. And that’s exactly what we want to set the record right on when it comes to Android 16’s support for live updates.
Google announced live updates all the way back when he introduced his first Android 16 beta, and described them as follows:
Live updates are a new class of notifications that help users monitor and quickly access important ongoing activities.
Smartphone fans were quick to draw comparison with Apple’s live activities introduced in iOS 16, which aims to achieve the same – and gave users an interactive, continuous updated notice to keep track of something that is actively happening. Common examples we often talk about are navigation apps that show your progress towards the destination, or a food delivery app that indicates how close your meal is.
An example of live updates from the Uber Eats app on AOD (left), lock screen (left center), status bar (right mid) and heads-up notification (right).
While Google is clear that live updates arrive with Android 16, the company’s language choice in today’s announcement only subtly states that this rollout is far from completed:
These live updates start with compatible riding stock and food delivery apps.
“Start” is the part to take into account there, as the experience you first get with these apps and their new notifications is not quite the same form that live updates will eventually take. This initial form really only addresses what Google calls “progress-centric user journeys” alerts that will indicate how far we are, updates with milestones.
For apps that implement them, you will be able to see these progress warnings in Android 16. But at the moment they will at least only work like all other Android notifications.
However, the full live update experience will not come until a point later this year. In the gallery above you can see the more functional evolution we are going, with the like that the full size for your always-on screen, or the compact chip view that persistent floats there just out on the top edge of the screen. Changes that these are going to be the ones that really separate live updates except everything that the warnings we have now, and although propulsion rods are an important first step, we are most happy to see how the whole package ends up getting together.
When can you expect it to happen? As we said, we expect this sometime later in 2025, but so far Google has not offered a company ETA for exactly when it may be. Qpr1 And QPR2 is the obvious goals, but it is still too early to say which one can have the full impact of live updates.