Google reveals Android 16 will arrive in the second quarter of 2025

This year, Android 15 arrived later than its predecessors. Instead of a Q3 release, the new version of Android started rolling out to eligible devices a little over a week ago. In 2025, Google will not be going back to a Q3 release for Android 16, but an even earlier Q2 release!

The info comes from an official post on the Android Developers Blog which states that there will be two Android releases in 2025. The first is a major release in Q2 and then a minor release in Q4. The reason provided for the major release coming earlier is so that it aligns with the schedule of device launches across the Android ecosystem and allows more devices get the major release sooner.

This makes sense considering a lot of manufacturers usually schedule new device launches for Q3, sometimes spilling into Q4, but ship their phones with an older version of Android. Google itself fell into this situation this year as the Pixel 9 (available on Amazon for $899) shipped with Android 14 instead of Android 15.

The Android release in the fourth quarter of 2025 will bring feature updates, optimizations, bug fixes, and new developer APIs following the release of the major update in Q2. However, there won't be app-impacting behavior changes. From this explanation, it seems we may see a return to the days of Android Jelly Bean where the Android version had a decimal point. In this case, the Q4 release might be a sort of Android 16.1.

The new release schedule means that Android 16, which is codenamed Baklava, will begin testing earlier than expected and those with eligible devices should look forward to getting the developer previews soon.