[Google Pixel Update📱] Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3.3 now available!

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TL;DR

• We have more information on the new Advanced Protection Mode in Android 16.
• When Advanced Protection Mode is enabled in Android 16, Android will block sideloading, disable cellular 2G connections, and enable MTE.
• Furthermore, apps will be able to apply their own security measures on top of these system-level changes.

If you believe you’re at high risk of being targeted by hackers or you desire an additional layer of security, you can enroll in Google’s Advanced Protection Program. The program improves security by requiring you to use a security key or passkey to sign in to your Google account, blocking you from downloading harmful files, and more. Enrolled users also benefit from beefed up security on their Android devices, with Android 16 introducing further security enhancements.

Google introduced the Advanced Protection Program in 2017 to provide extra security for IT admins, journalists, activists, and others at high risk of being hacked. When you enroll in the program, Android will prevent you from installing apps from outside the Google Play Store (i.e., sideloading). While this stops one common way for hackers to compromise Android devices, the Advanced Protection Program could do even more to protect Android users. This is what the new Advanced Protection Mode in Android 16 aims to address.

We first covered Advanced Protection Mode last October, but details were scarce at the time. We learned that it’s a “security conscious protection mode” that you can enroll in via the Android Settings app and that apps can check enrollment status via an API. However, we never found out what exactly it affected, but we now know thanks to the first Android 16 beta.
While examining Android 16 Beta 1, I discovered how to manually enable the new Advanced Protection Mode feature. After enabling the feature, I noticed the “allow from this source” toggle (located in Settings > Apps > Special app access > Install unknown apps) was now grayed out. A “disabled by Advanced Protection” message appeared below the toggle. Tapping the toggle displayed a dialog stating, “This action is not allowed because Advanced Protection is on for your device.”

By being unable to grant apps the “install unknown apps” permission, Android 16 prevents you from sideloading apps. This restriction isn’t entirely new for users already in the Advanced Protection Program, as Google Play Protect already blocks sideloaded app installations. The only difference is that sideloading can’t even be attempted.

App installation blocked by Play Protect when enrolled in the Advanced Protection Program
A key new feature of Advanced Protection Mode in Android 16 is its prevention of 2G connectivity. 2G connectivity is outdated and generally insecure, with few legitimate reasons for most users to enable it. Blocking it mitigates the risk of users being tricked into connecting to rogue 2G networks designed for surveillance.

Additionally, Advanced Protection Mode in Android 16 enables Memory Tagging Extension (MTE) for apps. This feature protects against memory safety bugs in Android apps, which are some of the most common sources of security vulnerabilities. MTE is currently an optional feature enabled through Settings > Security > Developer options > Memory Tagging Extension on compatible devices. Google made it optional due to potential performance impacts, a trade-off users in the Advanced Protection Program are likely willing to accept.

Google hasn’t formally announced this new Advanced Protection Mode, so its inclusion in the final Android 16 release isn’t guaranteed. Given the evidence we’ve compiled, though, we think it’s likely it’ll make it in. Blocking 2G and enabling MTE are valuable enhancements, but Advanced Protection Mode’s true potential lies in the new API, which allows apps to check enrollment status and implement further security measures. This effectively transforms the Advanced Protection Program into a one-click solution for enhancing the security of not only your Google account but also any participating Android app.

 

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TL;DR

• Google is working on a new Secure Lock feature for Android.
• Secure Lock is a new feature that’ll let you remotely lock down your Android device, putting it into an enhanced security state.
• When in this state, app notifications, widgets, the Quick Settings panel, and the voice assistant are unavailable and your device can’t be unlocked without entering both your lock screen credential and your biometrics.

Most people have a lot of sensitive personal data on their smartphones, making their devices prime targets for theft. If a thief steals your smartphone while it’s unlocked, you can remotely lock it to prevent access to your apps. However, if a thief has shoulder-surfed your lock screen credentials before stealing your phone, remotely locking it won’t prevent them from unlocking it again. Google has been working on features to address this issue, and in this year’s Android 16 update, the company may introduce a new Secure Lock feature that makes it even harder for thieves to access your sensitive data.

If a thief sees you entering your phone’s lock screen PIN, pattern, or password before stealing it, you can’t prevent them from unlocking your phone, even with biometric authentication enabled. Android doesn’t primarily rely on biometrics for unlocking because they’re considered less secure than knowledge-factor-based screen lock methods like PINs, patterns, or passwords. While the risk is small, biometrics can be spoofed, which is why they serve as secondary authentication methods. However, as discussed, this security model fails if someone obtains your primary lock screen credential.

Google partially addressed this issue with a new feature called Identity Check, introduced in the first Android 15 quarterly update. With Identity Check enabled, Android requires biometric authentication before allowing changes to certain sensitive settings when the device is outside a trusted location. This prevents thieves who know your lock screen PIN, pattern, or password from making critical account changes or accessing saved passwords. While this significantly improves protection against online account compromises, it doesn’t fully prevent access to sensitive data on your phone. Sensitive information may still be revealed through app notifications, widgets, or the digital assistant, all of which are accessible to someone who knows your primary lock screen credential.

This is where Android’s upcoming Secure Lock feature comes in. This new feature, currently under development by Google, enables an enhanced security mode that can be activated remotely. In this mode, unlocking the device requires both your primary lock screen credential and your biometrics. Additionally, features such as app notifications, widgets, Quick Settings, and the digital assistant are restricted to prevent sensitive data leaks.

 

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looks the same

 

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looks the same

Yeah, visually they’re similar, but the real changes are under the hood. beta features sometimes evolve slowly

 

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TL;DR

• Android 16 will deliver better support for LE Audio hearing aids, i.e. hearing aids that connect through Bluetooth LE Audio.
• The update includes new ambient volume controls that let you adjust the level of external sound.
• It also adds a feature that lets users switch between the built-in mics on hearing aids and the mic on the phone during voice calls.

Google is constantly working to make Android more accessible, and at last week’s Galaxy Unpacked event, the company announced that it was launching LE Audio compatibility for hearing aids. Google didn’t share many details about this new feature, except that Android would be getting a new dialog that lets users quickly change presets. With the release of the first Android 16 beta the following day, though, we learned a bit more information about how Google is improving hearing aid support in Android.

In case you aren’t aware, LE Audio is the latest Bluetooth audio standard, replacing Bluetooth Classic Audio profiles like A2DP. It’s composed of a set of Bluetooth profiles that all operate over Bluetooth Low Energy. These profiles enable new features like Auracast, i.e. audio broadcasting over Bluetooth, and hearing aid support. Hearing aids that use LE Audio enjoy enhanced performance, better battery life, and improved compatibility across various platforms.

Following the release of Android 16 Beta 1 last week, Google published documentation that revealed some of the new hearing aid-related improvements coming to Android. These include new ambient volume controls for LE Audio hearing aids as well as a feature that allows users to use their phone’s microphone for voice calls instead of the mic in hearing aids.

Ambient volume controls for LEA hearing aids​

Google says that Android 16 adds the ability for users of LE Audio hearing aids to “adjust the volume of ambient sound that is picked up by the hearing aid’s microphones.” This will be helpful in places where background noise is either too loud or too quiet.

Although the documentation doesn’t mention how users can adjust the volume of ambient sound, I found strings that suggest there will be a new “surroundings” option in the hearing aid dialog. This option will let users control the ambient volume of the left bud, the right bud, or both at the same time. There will also be an option to quickly mute or unmute sounds coming from surroundings.

<string name="bluetooth_ambient_volume_control_collapse">Collapse to unified control</string>
<string name="bluetooth_ambient_volume_control_expand">Expand to left and right separated controls</string>
<string name="bluetooth_ambient_volume_control_left">Left</string>
<string name="bluetooth_ambient_volume_control_right">Right</string>
<string name="bluetooth_ambient_volume_error">Couldn’t update surroundings</string>
<string name="bluetooth_ambient_volume_mute">Mute surroundings</string>
<string name="bluetooth_ambient_volume_unmute">Unmute surroundings</string>

Furthermore, there’s evidence this is going to be tied to the new “surroundings” slider that Pixel Buds Pro 2 owners are seeing after updating to Android 16 Beta 1. It would be nice if Google were to update the Pixel Buds Pro 2 to act as hearing aids over LE Audio, but there’s no evidence yet to suggest that will be the case.

Phone as microphone input for voice calls with LEA hearing aids​

Next, Google says that Android 16 also adds the ability for users of LE Audio hearing aids to “switch between the built-in microphones on the hearing aids and the microphone on their phone for voice calls.” The company says this can be helpful in noisy environments or in other situations where the hearing aid’s microphone may not perform well. It can also be helpful to switch mics when the battery is low on hearing aids, as it’ll help prolong their battery life.

Strings I found in Android 16 Beta 1 suggest that there will be a “switch” button in the notification that appears when connected to a hearing aid. There will also be a notification that appears when users are in a voice call that informs them that they can switch mics.

<string name="hearing_device_notification_switch_button">Switch</string>
<string name="hearing_device_status_active">Active</string>
<string name="hearing_device_status_connected">Connected</string>
<string name="hearing_device_status_disconnected">Disconnected</string>
<string name="hearing_device_status_loading">Loading</string>
<string name="hearing_device_switch_hearing_mic_notification_text">You can use your hearing aid microphone for hands-free calling. This only switches your mic during the call.</string>
<string name="hearing_device_switch_hearing_mic_notification_title">Switch to hearing aid mic?</string>
<string name="hearing_device_switch_phone_mic_notification_text">For better sound or if your hearing aid battery is low. This only switches your mic during the call.</string>
<string name="hearing_device_switch_phone_mic_notification_title">Switch to phone mic?</string>

---

It’s great to see companies like Google go beyond what’s required of them. The FCC last year mandated that mobile phones in the US be compatible with hearing aids, a rule that Android follows by supporting LE Audio. These two enhancements in Android 16 aren’t required by law, but they improve the quality of life of people who rely on hearing aids. Hopefully Google also rolls out Fast Pair support for hearing aids soon, as it will make it easier for users to pair their new hearing aids to their Android devices.

Google says these hearing aid changes are live in Android 16 Beta 1, but since I don’t have a pair of LE Audio hearing aids, I can’t test them for myself. If you have an LE Audio hearing aid and you’re running Android 16 Beta 1 on your Pixel device, let us know if you see these new features!

 

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TL;DR

• Android 16 introduces Live Updates, a new class of notifications for ongoing activities.
• Live Updates are prominently displayed on the lock screen as well as on the status bar.
• These notifications are intended for rideshare pickups, food delivery alerts, navigation, and other use cases.

If you’re waiting for your Uber driver to arrive, then you’re probably either glued to the Uber app or periodically pulling down the notifications panel to see where they are. Your friends with iPhones don’t need to keep the Uber app open or manually check their notifications, though, thanks to Uber’s support for Live Activities on iOS. Android currently lacks an equivalent to Live Activities, but that’s changing in Android 16 with the introduction of Live Updates.

A Live Activity in iOS is a type of notification that displays frequently updated information, such as the status of a flight, rideshare, delivery, or sporting event. Live Activities are shown on top of the iPhone’s Dynamic Island and the lock screen, making them easily visible. Android offers various notification types, including heads-up notifications, which appear briefly in a floating window above the status bar. Unlike Live Activities, which persist and update in place, frequent updates using heads-up notifications would require numerous individual notifications, potentially becoming intrusive. The new Live Updates feature in Android 16 aims to address this limitation.

Google didn’t share a lot of details about the feature in its blog post announcing Android 16 Beta 1, but that’s because this mode is only partially implemented in Beta 1. Android 16 Beta 1 only introduces support for progress-centric notifications, a new notification style that shows the progress of something like a rideshare pickup, a food delivery dropoff, or distance until the next turn. Developers can use this new notification style to denote states and milestones in a user’s journey through points and segments on a progress bar.

If this doesn’t sound like anything new to you, I don’t blame you. After all, rideshare apps like Uber have already been showing notifications like this for years now. Uber had to do a lot of custom stuff to make its notifications look like that on Android, though. Google has basically created a standardized version of what Uber’s been doing. With the new progress-centric notifications in Android 16, any app can create notifications like Uber.

More importantly, progress-centric notifications will be displayed more prominently on the lock screen. This is important given that Google is working on a new compact notification shelf on the lock screen for Android 16. When the new compact option is enabled, notifications are collapsed into a shelf that you have to tap to expand. Progress-centric notifications, i.e. Live Updates, likely won’t be collapsed into this shelf along with other notifications.
While I can’t confirm this to be the case, strings I discovered in Android 16 Beta 1 suggest that Live Updates will always appear on the lock screen. The OS currently doesn’t refer to this new class of notification as Live Updates, instead referring to it as live notifications. However, it’s likely this is merely an early copy and that it’s talking about the same feature.

<string name="live_notifications">Live notifications</string>
<string name="live_notifications_desc">Pinned notifications display live info from apps, and always appear on the status bar and lock screen</string>
<string name="live_notifications_switch">Show live info</string>

What’s interesting about these strings is that they also mention live notifications always appearing on the status bar. Google’s blog post didn’t say anything about the placement of Live Updates on the status bar, but the Android developer docs state that promoted/live notifications may “show as chips in the status bar, and/or permanently appear on always-on displays.”

This lines up with my previous reporting on the Rich Ongoing Notifications API. Back in October, I discovered a hidden command-line interface that allowed me to create mock live notifications with customizable app icons, text, and background colors. These mockups appeared as chips in the status bar, as shown in the gallery below.

Given the reference to status bar chips in the Android developer docs, it’s likely that Live Updates will appear as status bar chips. They’ll also show up on always-on displays, which is interesting. Google hasn’t shared any information on how to make progress-centric notifications appear in the status bar as chips or on the always-on display, so we’re not sure if that’s even possible yet in Android 16 Beta 1. The feature is clearly still a work in progress, so we’ll likely have to wait for a future beta to see Live Updates in all their glory.

 

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TL;DR

• Android may add a new feature that automatically converts light theme apps to dark theme.
• The evidence for this comes from a new “make more apps dark” toggle that I spotted in the first Android 16 beta release.
• Google has been working on this feature since last year, so it’s unclear when it may launch.

Although many of the best Android apps have a built-in dark theme, not all of them do. Fitbit, for example, doesn’t have a dark theme, and neither do many finance and shopping apps like PayPal, Walmart, and Amazon. Many users are unhappy about these apps’ lack of dark theme support, as they feel dark-themed apps are more comfortable to view, especially at night. Fortunately, Google is working on a feature for Android 16 that could force these apps to go dark.

In April of last year, I spotted development of a hidden “make all apps dark” feature that I thought would go live in Android 15. This mode forced every app to go dark, even if they didn’t have their own dark theme. It worked in more apps than the existing “override force-dark” toggle found in the Developer Options of most Android devices, suggesting that the “make all apps dark” feature took priority over apps’ requests to disable forced color inversion. Unlike the “override force-dark” toggle, though, the “make all apps dark” feature seemed to do a better job at making certain apps go dark, leading me to believe it wasn’t just blindly inverting colors but rather using a more intelligent method of choosing which elements to change.

For reference, here’s a gallery I prepared last year that compares the UI of several apps without built-in dark themes: no changes applied, “override force-dark” enabled, and “make all apps dark” enabled.

If you’re wondering why I’m talking about a hidden feature of Android 15 that never saw the light of day, it’s because I’ve just seen evidence that Google hasn’t abandoned it. In fact, Google just updated the description and placement of it in Android 16 Beta 1, which suggests that this tool is still in active development.

Previously, the feature was named “make all apps dark” and was located in Settings > Accessibility > Color and motion. In Android 16 Beta 1, however, it’s been renamed to “make more apps dark” and is now located in Settings > Display & touch > Dark theme. It’s still a hidden feature, of course, but with a bit of effort, I managed to manually surface it in Android’s dark theme settings, as shown below.

Hidden "make all apps dark" toggle in Android 15.

Hidden "make more apps dark" toggle in Android 16 Beta 1

The description has also been updated in Android 16 Beta 1. Instead of saying that it “applies to apps without their own dark theme. Some apps may have display issues, like inverted colors,” it now states that the feature “automatically convert light-themed apps to dark theme.”

Apart from the changes in name, description, and location, the feature itself is unchanged from when I spotted it last year. Still, the fact that these changes were made at all in Android 16 Beta 1 is noteworthy, as it confirms that Google is still working on the feature. I don’t know when Google will actually launch it, but I’m hoping the company decides to roll it out in the upcoming stable release of Android 16.

 

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TL;DR

• Android 16’s Linux Terminal can now run graphical Linux apps such as Doom.
• This is thanks to improvements like hardware acceleration support and a display server.
• These upgrades aren’t live yet in the most recent Android 16 beta, but they could arrive in a future release.

Google wants to turn Android into a full-fledged PC operating system, and to do so, it needs to get desktop-class programs running on it. The best way for Google to do that is to add support for running Linux apps on Android, much like it did with Chrome OS. That’s exactly the idea behind the Android Linux Terminal app that Google has been working on for the past several months. The current version of the Terminal app lacks support for running graphical apps, but that could change in an upcoming release of Android 16.

Android’s Linux Terminal is an all-in-one app that downloads, configures, runs, and interfaces with an instance of the Debian distribution running in a virtual machine. The app relies on the Android Virtualization Framework (AVF), a set of APIs that allow an Android host device to run other operating systems via virtualization. AVF is supported by many different devices from a variety of OEMs, with the noteworthy exception of Samsung.

The Terminal app first appeared in the Android 15 QPR2 beta as a developer option, and it still remains locked behind developer settings. Since its initial public release, Google pushed a few changes that fixed issues with the installation process and added a settings menu to resize the disk, forward ports, and backup the installation. However, the biggest changes the company has been working on, which include adding hardware acceleration support and a full graphical environment, have not been pushed to any public releases.

Thankfully, since Google is working on this feature in the open, it’s possible to simply compile a build of AOSP with these changes added in. This gives us the opportunity to trial upcoming features of the Android Linux Terminal app before a public release. To demonstrate, we fired up the Linux Terminal on a Pixel 9 Pro, tapped a new button on the top right to enter the Display activity, and then ran the ‘weston’ command to open up a graphical environment. (Weston is a reference implementation of a Wayland compositor, a modern display server protocol.)

We also went ahead and enabled hardware acceleration beforehand as well as installed Chocolate Doom, a source port of Doom, to see if it would run. Doom did run, as you can see below. It ran well, which is no surprise considering Doom can run on literal potatoes. There wasn’t any audio because an audio server isn’t available yet, but audio support is something that Google is still working on.



Regardless, the fact that Android’s Linux Terminal can run graphical apps like Doom now is good news. Hopefully we’ll be able to run more complex desktop-class Linux programs in the future. I tried running GIMP, for example, but it didn’t work. Eventually, Android should be able to run Linux apps as well as Chromebooks can, as I believe one of the goals of this project is to help the transition of Chrome OS to an Android base.

 

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TL;DR

• Google is working on a change to how the Quick Settings tiles for Internet and Bluetooth expand.
• Instead of opening up into panels that float above the Quick Settings panel, these tiles could instead expand to fill up the panel itself.
• This is similar to how the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth tiles used to work from Android 5.1 through Android 8.1.

Google released the first beta of Android 16 last week, but on the surface, it doesn’t have many new features. It certainly doesn’t look any different than the previous Android release, but that’s only because Google has hidden many of the UI changes it’s working on. For example, Google is working on a total redesign of the notifications and Quick Settings panels, but you wouldn’t know that from the public beta builds. I uncovered this effort through some investigation, and while examining the first beta of Android 16, I discovered another major Quick Settings-related change that impacts how the Internet and Bluetooth tiles behave.

I previously reported in September that Google is preparing a major overhaul to notifications and Quick Settings in Android 16. Google is working to split the notifications and Quick Settings panels into two separate pages, a change that many of its OEM partners have already adopted. By splitting these panels, Android can show more notifications in the notifications panel and more tiles and buttons in Quick Settings. However, this change will mess with people’s muscle memory, though thankfully not their actual muscles as Google won’t require two fingers to pull down the new Quick Settings panel.



Along with the redesigned panel, Google is also considering changes to the expanded behavior of the Internet and Bluetooth tiles. Currently, both tiles pop out into floating panels. However, this wasn’t always the case.

From Android 9 through Android 11, the Wi-Fi tile was not expandable. It only served as a quick toggle for the Wi-Fi radio and a shortcut to full Wi-Fi settings. This changed in Android 12 with the introduction of the Internet tile, which combined Wi-Fi and mobile data and expanded into the panel we see today. The Bluetooth tile didn’t become expandable until Android 14 QPR2, which introduced the Bluetooth panel.

Long-time Android users may recall that expandable Quick Settings tiles existed before Android 9. In Android 5.1 through 8.1, the Wi-Fi and Bluetooth tiles could be expanded by tapping the arrow below them. Instead of popping out into floating panels, though, the tiles simply expanded within the Quick Settings panel itself. Google removed this functionality in Android 9 with the introduction of a redesigned Quick Settings panel, which remained until Android 12. However, it appears the company may be bringing it back.

The Quick Settings panel in Android 5.1

The expanded Wi-Fi tile in Android 5.1

The expanded Bluetooth tile in Android 5.1

While I was digging through Android 16 Beta 1, I discovered code for a new Quick Settings tile “detailed view” feature. With a bit of effort, I managed to enable the feature. After enabling it, I noticed that the Internet and Bluetooth tiles no longer popped out into floating panels but rather expanded to fill up the area within the Quick Settings panel, similar to how things worked in Android 5.1 – Android 8.1. However, the feature is clearly still in development, as evidenced by the duplicated text and lack of data in the expanded tiles.



Given the unfinished state of this feature, I’m not sure when it might go live. It may not launch alongside the rest of the Quick Settings redesign, which is still very much a work in progress. In fact, I’m willing to bet that the new Quick Settings design won’t be ready for the stable release of Android 16 in Q2. It’s too unfinished to ship, with there being no way to swipe between the notifications and Quick Settings panels, contrast issues when light mode is enabled, and other bugs. While the stable release of Android 16 is still months away, Google typically finalizes major changes well in advance. Given its current state, this feature may be delayed until a later version of Android.

I’ll continue to monitor upcoming Android betas to see how things progress on the new Quick Settings panel. As you can see, Google is not just overhauling the design; it’s also adding new features like tile categories and resizable tiles. The company could be planning more changes that require it to push the release of the new design to an Android 16 QPR or even Android 17.

 

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TL;DR

• Android will soon be able to alert you when your device’s time zone has been automatically updated.
• This alert will come in the form of a notification.
• The feature isn’t live yet in the latest Android 16 preview, but when it does go live, it’ll be opt-in.

Telling you what time it is is one of the important functions of a mobile device, and fortunately, they’re all really good at it. Using location data derived from your phone’s mobile network, Wi-Fi, or GPS, your phone can even automatically adjust the time when you enter a new time zone. Sometimes, though, you may want a heads up when your phone’s time zone has been automatically updated, which is why Google is working on a new feature for Android 16 that does just that.

While I was digging through Android 16 Beta 1, I found some strings for a new “time zone change” feature that is supposed to show up under Settings > System > Date & time. The description says that the feature will let you “receive a notification when your time zone is automatically updated.”

<string name="time_zone_change_notifications_toggle_summary">Receive a notification when your time zone is automatically updated</string>
<string name="time_zone_change_notifications_toggle_title">Time zone change</string>

With some tinkering, I managed to get the “time zone change” toggle to appear in the Settings app. Here’s a screenshot:

However, I don’t have a screenshot of the notification itself that will appear, as I haven’t been able to travel outside of my time zone since enabling the feature. Fortunately, I know what it will say, as Android 16 Beta 1 also added strings pertaining to that. The title of the notification will explain that “your time zone changed” and the body of the notification will include exactly what time zone you’re now in.

<string name="time_zone_change_notification_body">"You're now in %1$s (%2$s)"</string>
<string name="time_zone_change_notification_title">Your time zone changed</string>

This is a pretty straightforward feature that will make Android even better at timekeeping, as it’ll enable the OS to proactively alert you to time zone changes. Knowing that your phone’s time zone has changed and what time zone it has specifically changed to can be beneficial for making appointments or plans with other people, and it can also save you from digging into the Settings app when you need to manually change the time zone in apps like Outlook.

While the feature itself is pretty simple, it builds upon something that’s actually quite complex under the hood: time zone updates. Time zones are a mess to manage, but thanks to Google Play System Updates, Google can push out changes to the time zone database on Android devices soon after the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) releases an update. This capability, combined with the multiple location options available on most Android hardware, makes Android devices some of the best around for keeping time.

Although I spotted this feature in Android 16 Beta 1, I don’t know if it will appear in the stable release of Android 16. Code for new features often appears well before their debut, so it’s not always clear if a feature that Google is working on is planned for the upcoming release or a future one. Since Google plans to release Android 16 in Q2 of this year, we’ll soon find out if this one makes the cut.

 

[joesph]

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After releasing the first beta of Android 16 back in January, Google is now ready to ship out Android 16 Beta 2 for your Pixel device to download. This latest release brings us one early step closer to the full release of Android 16 that should happen in Q2.

Like the previous beta release, Android 16 Beta 2 is available to the Pixel 6 up through the newest Pixel 9 series. The list also includes the A-series devices within that range, as well as foldables and the Pixel Tablet.

WHAT’S NEW IN ANDROID 16 BETA 2: Since that first beta release, we’ve been running Android 16 on a Pixel 9 Pro to see how stable it is and if anything new and interesting might pop up that we can share. We’re still not finding any big splashy new features, because Google mostly saves those ideas for its Pixel line-up with feature drops each quarter. That doesn’t mean we won’t get anything before this goes stable, though.

For Android 16 Beta 2, Google has shared the developer changes to be on the lookout for if you are a developer. Google says that professional camera users will love Android 16’s support for hybrid auto exposure with precise color temperature and tint adjustments, standard intent actions for Motion Photo captures, HEIC encoding support and UltraHDR improvements.

After the camera stuff, this Beta 2 gets pretty developer-y. Google shared a blog post to detail everything, and it covers things like health and fitness permissions going granular, new API for live wallpapers for the system to better handle those, standardized picture and audio quality framework for TVs, and some other stuff. We’ve linked that blog post below for those who might be interested.

Release date: February 13, 2025
Build: BP22.250124.009
Emulator support: x86 (64-bit), ARM (v8-A)
Security patch level: February 2025
Google Play services: 25.04.30

DOWNLOAD ANDROID 16 BETA 2 ON PIXEL: Want to get Beta 2 up and running on your Pixel device? It’s easy at this point to do so, as you aren’t being asked to flash images or OTA files any longer. You can! You just don’t need to.

Here’s the full list of Android 16 Beta devices:

• Pixel 6 and 6 Pro
• Pixel 6a
• Pixel 7 and 7 Pro
• Pixel 7a
• Pixel Fold
• Pixel Tablet
• Pixel 8 and 8 Pro
• Pixel 8a
• Pixel 9
• Pixel 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold

And here are your options to get Android 16 Beta 2 on your device:

• Easiest way: If you own one of those devices, the easiest way to get Android 16 Beta 2 is to sign-up for the Android Beta Program (here). You’ll simply click the “Opt In” button next to your device on that page to join and then sit back and wait for Google to push an update as Android 16 over-the-air.
• Already on an Android 16 DP or Beta build: If you are already on an Android 16 Developer Preview or Beta build, Google says that you will receive the Beta 2 update over-the-air. Of course, you can manually flash a factory image or OTA file as well, since the over-the-air process often takes forever to process.
• Flash an image: Want to get updated faster or would rather flash a factory image or OTA file through adb to feel more techie and important and smart? That’s always an option! I’ll be going the OTA route, but factory images will be available too. You’ll find Android 16 Beta 2 factory images here and the OTA files here.

Time to dive in and see what else we can find!

// Android Developers Blog