Summary
- Android 16 is on track for its June release, a departure from Google’s usual August releases.
- Google’s President of the Android ecosystem confirmed to Android Police it’s on track for its target.
- Google has switched to Trunk Stable development, allowing it to release Android updates earlier.
Android 16 is coming earlier in the year than any recent version of the software, and Google has confirmed it’s on track to hit its June release date. Speaking to Android Police at MWC 2025, Google’s President of the Android Ecosystem, Sameer Samat, confirmed the company is on track to meet its self-imposed target date.
Samat said, “So far, so good. I’ve never had a release where at this point the bug count was where I wanted it to be, but the team is working really hard, and we’re excited about getting it there.”
Google has given itself a June deadline for the new version of Android, which is currently mid-way through its second beta. In recent years, Google has released its latest version in August or later. It has often combined the launch of new software with the release of a flagship Pixel model, but it’s changing tact for 2025 for development reasons.
Related
Android 16 timeline revealed: Platform Stability in Q1, rollout in Q2
Beta releases begin in January
Why is Google going early?
It’s all about Trunk Stable
Google is aiming to release the software earlier this year because of development changes within the Android team. The company has begun using Trunk Stable development for the next version of Android.
“Trunk Stable development means that everyone working on Android is contributing to the same branch of code,” said Samat. “We can build the entire system more regularly and more often. That’s opposed to all working on different branches, and then we merge them all at the end. Then we need a lot of time to work out problems and challenges.”
“One of the reasons for the original release schedule is we would do that merge in June. Then it would take us from June until later in the year to work out all of those issues. And so one of the challenges we set ourselves internally is to see if we can get this out earlier.”
Google has moved to a strategy of more consistent and regular releases for Android changes in recent years. Despite this, Samat says the numbered operating system releases are more important than ever to Google. “This year, we will do more to highlight what is in the release,” Samat said. “We know we have many fans around the world who want to understand more of the depth of it.”
“There are also a lot of users that want functionality faster, and they want us to update more regularly. We have been modularizing and componentizing Android so that we can do that. There are some fundamental changes which can only happen with an operating system release, but there are other things where we’ve engineered Android such that a component can update more regularly.
“When we have new capabilities, the decision is always between do we hold this for an operating system release, or do we give it to people on a more quarterly cadence with Android drops. We’ve gotten a great response to Android drops because it feels like your phone is always getting better.”
Android 16 Beta 2.1 is the most recent release from the company and is available on Pixel phones now. We expect to hear more about the final release of Android 16’s final software at
Google I/O 2025
that’s set for May 20. That will likely mean we hear about a final rollout for Android 16’s update, which is on track to release by the end of June.
