The Android 16 preview cycle continues with the next beta officially set to arrive on Thursday, February 13. We’ve always known that Android 16 Beta 2 is coming this month, but Google providing an explicit teaser is somewhat unexpected.
This preview of the preview comes from the @AndroidDev X account on Wednesday afternoon: “Be on the lookout for Android 16 Beta 2 dropping tomorrow .”
In terms of user-facing changes, Beta 1 in January wasn’t a major update. It was a more sizable release for the intended audience of app developers:
It remains to be seen whether Beta 2 will change that, especially on the user interface front. Officially, it’s an “Incremental Beta-quality release.” Google providing an Android 16 Beta teaser is interesting, but that doesn’t translate to big features.
More broadly, it will be interesting to see what kind of presence Android 16 has at I/O 2025 on May 20. Google’s Android 16 timeline only goes up to “Beta 4” (in April), but does leave open the possibility of another “near-final build” in May. Historically, the developer conference has been used to reveal the major tentpoles, but the earlier preview cycle complicates that.
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