Android 16 sets the baseline for the 2025 Android platform, and Google’s priorities are plain: smarter notifications, stronger security, better media and camera plumbing, and meaningful quality‑of‑life enhancements for large screens and accessibility. Here’s a slick, confirmed rundown of what actually is in the platform (not future QPRs or OEM skins), with some context on why it’s important.
Notifications and lock screen
Live Updates come as a fresh breed of “progress‑centric” notifications that highlight time‑sensitive journeys – say, a rideshare is drawing closer, a delivery nears, or the next turn in navigation approaches. Phase one in Android 16 adds richer progress info now right in the notification, reducing app‑hops for common tasks. It’s Google’s response to the same problem iOS solved with Live Activities, written with Android’s notification stack as a frame of reference.
Android 16 also mandates automatic grouping of alerts from the same app, removing visual noise without requiring developers to opt in. A new Notification Cooldown decreases alert volume over time when spam comes in bursty, a small but useful win you won’t realize you need until the first time chat blows up.
Other handy refinements: a system setting to remap the double‑press power gesture to Google Wallet versus camera, and improved predictive back animations where developers can opt in to display a predictive back on the three-button navigation bar when the app supports the modern back API.
Security and privacy hardening
The Advanced Protection Mode extends Google’s high‑risk user protections further into the OS. With a single toggle, Android 16 will enforce tougher security for both system and first‑party apps, and then expose an API so that third‑party apps can add their own increased protections when the mode is in effect. The goal is similar to Google’s pre-existing Advanced Protection Program for accounts, but at the device level.
To stifle social‑engineering during calls, Android 16 does not enable sideloading or certain high‑risk permissions (like Accessibility) when a call is ongoing—a tactic that fraud investigators say scammers rely on. For sensitive notifications–such as OTPs–these are automatically obfuscated on the lock screen in high‑risk situations, minimising the risk of shoulder‑surfing leaks.
Secure Lock allows you, a trusted client, to remotely lock your device at an elevated state with both your primary credential and biometrics required for access. And new `mobile network security` notifications can flag when a cellular network’s signal is unencrypted or when it requests device identifiers—available on devices that ship with the necessary radio HAL.
Camera, media and graphics stack
Real HDR screenshots are now a standard: Android 16 fixes HDR screenshots saves as PNG with gain maps where available – so screenshot will pop on HDR screens.uts, but gracefully fallback to SDR elsewhere. The Camera2 stack receives hybrid auto‑exposure modes, finer-grained color temperature/tint controls, a Motion Photo standard intent, and Ultra HDR support in HEIC with JPEG – good for both pro apps and social platforms.
On video side lights up the APV 422‑10 profile, essentially a “pro” codec tier outlining perceptually lossless quality with YUV422 sampling, 10‑bit depth and high bitrates – useful for content creators to swiftly shift footage between phone and desktop NLEs.
Google also made Vulkan the official graphics API for Android. VPA 16: Vulkan Profiles for Android When Vulkan is the GPU HAL, and VPA 16 is used to set a minimum capabilities, the developer has a much more consistent target. Among nifty new features, Host Image Copy (from Vulkan 1.4) enables CPU-driven texture movement without stalling the GPU, smoothing stutter and expediting loads in real‑world games.
Connectivity, ranging, and audio
RangingManager consolidates distance and angle measurements—across BLE channel sounding, RSSI, UWB, and Wi‑Fi RTT—setting the stage for more accurate device finding and nearby‑device experiences.
Android 16 confirmed features overview on smartphone screen使い方画像サムネイル
Android 16 also adds support for secure Wi‑Fi positioning using 802.11az devices when available, providing high accuracy with AES‑256 security for sensitive use cases (e.g., unlocking a laptop or vehicle) even in high‑risk RF environments, following the Wi‑Fi Alliance’s positioning work.
In the name of fly accessibility, LE Audio hearing‑aid wearers can modulate ambient mic mix and flip back and forth between on‑aid mics and the phone mic during calls if they’re so inclined, and they can even tap into Auracast broadcast audio in venues that support the standard—stuff that syncs up with the Bluetooth SIG’s next‑gen assistive listening vision.
UX basics and large‑screen policy
Android 16 encourages apps to draw edge‑to‑edge by default and deprecates the opt‑out for apps targeting the new SDK. For larger screens, the platform starts to ignore a number of legacy manifest flags that attempted to lock orientation or prevent resizing (ignores games for now). Developers can currently opt out temporarily, but Google adds it becomes mandatory for the next cycle — welcoming news for tablets and foldables.
Text rendering receives underlying support for vertical writing systems, which is good news for languages like Japanese. And there’s a new Outline Text accessibility option that replaces “high contrast text,” making the text more legible by drawing more contrasting areas around the glyphs.
Health, identity, and language
Health Connect introduces early‑access support for reading and writing health records in the FHIR standard, as well as a new activity‑intensity data type that corresponds to World Health Organization guidance on moderate and vigorous activity. And there is a meditation session type, in anticipation of broader wellness integrations.
Identity becomes more cohesive: Android 16 grows platform-level hooks to allow more devices to take advantage of Identity Check behaviors introduced in certain flagships. Users can also choose a measurement system that is separate from a system’s preferred language – useful in areas where apps display metric and imperial measurements interchangeably. (4)Unicode 16.0 emoji are adopted from the Unicode Consortium system font.
Developer tools and system plumbing
The system Photo Picker gets customization APIs so apps can provide brand‑consistent pickers without foregoing Android’s privacy benefits, and search hooks for cloud media providers. The behaviors on those displays, can be more easily targeted, thereby becoming less janky from mode‑switch and less power-hungry.
A Settings integration API now allows apps to include their own toggles within the system Settings app—if these become common, this should cut down on scavenger hunts in apps looking for toggles. Android 16 also brings in‑process software audio codecs, if code written in memory‑safe languages like Rust is used, and a path to clouds to make it faster to install new apps by offloading work from dex2oat, continuing our long‑term investment in performance and battery on all devices.
Trade‑in Mode accelerates retail diagnostics even faster by provisioning a constrained ADB right from setup, enabling automatic checks without fully provisioning a device — remove a small amount of friction, and scale saves retailers time at the peak of checkout in the moment devices are confirmed to be in the right shape.
Why it matters
Among other features (table stakes, really), the Android 16 platform announcements we can confirm are less about flashy UI and more about reliability where users feel it: clearer, more actionable notifications; guardrails that inhibit scammers; media and graphics tech that’s good news for both creators and gamers; and policies that encourage apps to play nicely with big screens. That much is clear from Google’s own documentation and announcements to developers: ship sturdy plumbing first, and follow up with phased-out visual overhauls via QPRs and app updates as they’re ready.
