Android

Manila, Philippines — Google has announced the first developer preview of Android 16 in a blog post on Monday, November 18, 2024. The early release, now available for Pixel devices, are early baseline builds for developers only. The developer preview program helps developers utilize the latest platform code to prepare their apps for the next version of Android.

The developer preview program runs from November 2024 until the final public release (stable release) to AOSP (Android Open Source Project) and OEMs (Original Equipment Manufacturers). For the unaware, AOSP means software used by developers while OEMs mean software used by phone makers. 

Developer releases of Android tend to be complex as they are solely intended for developers, which are not suitable for daily use by early adopters or consumers — hence why Google is making the builds only available by manual download and flash. But there are beta builds for the latter, although that's when the tech giant is done on developer builds, that consumers can opt for. But that's for later.

As of this writing, the Android 16 Developer Preview currently supports the following Pixel devices 9 (as per the official preview page for Android 16):

  • Pixel 6 and 6 Pro
  • Pixel 6a
  • Pixel 7 and 7 Pro
  • Pixel 7a
  • Pixel Fold
  • Pixel Tablet
  • Pixel 8 and 8 Pro
  • Pixel 8a
  • Pixel 9, 9 Pro, 9 Pro XL, and 9 Pro Fold
Developers can get started with the Android 16 Developer Preview 1 by flashing the system image and updating the needed tools for the preview.

Android 16 Developer Preview 1, codenamed 'Baklava'

Developer previews for the next versions of Android often come with internal codenames for development use. In the case of Android 16, it uses the codename Baklava as a moniker for API (Application Programming Interface) levels that are used for app compatibility testing. Again, for developers.

Android 16 roadmap
The Android 16 roadmap. | Image credit: Android Developers Blog

As for the apps that target developer previews, Google Play prevents apps with such API levels until a certain milestone has been reached, which Google calls the Platform Stability milestone. But that's for the first quarter of the next year (March 2025). The stable version of Android 16 is expected to be released somewhere in the second quarter of 2025.

Header photo by Denny Müller on Unsplash.