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Forget Android 15 – Android 16 could be here sooner than expected

Pabio November 1, 2024

Quick summary

Google is shaking up its Android release schedules.

Starting in 2025, all major Android releases will arrive in summer rather than fall.

In recent years, Android releases have settled into a predictable annual routine: developer previews come out around February, and the final version hits your phone in August or September. But from 2025, Google intends to change that and deliver major Android updates to your phone earlier in the year.

At the moment, Android versions are released in the third quarter – the quarter ending in September. But going forward, Google intends to deliver them in the previous quarter. So instead of an Android Autumn, we will have a Smartphone Summer.

Why is Google changing the Android release date?

The main reason for this change is to “better align with the device launch schedule in our ecosystem,” Google explains. The move aims to ensure “more devices can get the major Android release sooner” as well as provide “a higher level of quality and finish between releases.”

The news comes via Google Android Developers blogwhere he outlines the new plan. “Next year, we will have a major release in the second quarter and a minor release in the fourth quarter,” Google explains. The major version will be the main numbered version, so Android 15 will be replaced by Android 16; the minor release will be the mid-term update with feature updates, bug fixes, and minor improvements, but “will not include any behavioral changes that impact the application.”

Although the major and minor updates in Q2 and Q4 are the key releases on the schedule, that doesn’t mean they will be the only Android updates. Google says it will continue to provide updates in Q1 and Q3 with “incremental updates to ensure continued quality.”

It will be interesting to see what this means for existing devices such as the Pixel 6awhich launched in July 2022 with the promise of three years rather than three generations of Android updates. Before Google’s change, this meant it wouldn’t necessarily get Android 16, as it wouldn’t arrive until after three years. However, Google’s changes in 2025 mean that’s now at least a possibility.