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Android 16 will ship early in 2025

Change your annual Android update calendar.

The announcement says this will “better align with the schedule of device launches across our ecosystem, so more devices can get the major release of Android sooner.” Other changes Google is talking about today include improvements to the Play Store, where users can share preferences for better recommendations on new apps the way they already could for games, and in development, where Google is adding more Gemini AI features in Android Studio to “write, refactor, and document” code in apps. A new schedule could make it easier for more manufacturers to release new devices with the latest capabilities available on day one instead of waiting for future updates to add things like Circle to Search. It will mean shifting compatibility testing forward, but the other benefit is that apps could have reasons to support new features — i Phone Live Activities-like ongoing notifications, for example — because more devices will be able to use them right away.

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