This year, Google launched its Pixel 9 series separately from the release of Android 15, which is unheard of. Every year, new Pixel devices launch alongside the latest version of Android, but this year was different; in fact, Pixel owners are still waiting for Android 15.
However, this reportedly won’t happen again. According to Mishaal Rahman, Android 16 will debut in Q2 of 2025. This means if Google plans to release the Pixel 10 in August of next year, it should come alongside Android 16. An earlier launch may mean we’ll get to learn a lot about the new version of Android at Google I/O in May.
Rahman says that earlier this year, the Mountain View company moved to a trunk-based development model to improve platform stability. With the trunk project, Android developers work on a “single, unified internal ‘main branch’ and use flagging to determine what features and APIs are enabled in a particular build they push out. Due to this, the company is able to try and push out changes faster than before.”
Rahman found code in the Android Open Source Project to support these findings. The code refers to 25Q2, which Rahman believes is a reference to Android 16, and that the latest version of Android will show up between April and June.
While you wait to learn more about Android 16, Android 15 is expected to launch in a bit over two weeks.
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