Android 16 review: Post-hype

The age of big, exciting Android updates is probably over.

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[4qu4rius]

All these features moving to Google Play (Services) are also lost to AOSP. open source Android may be doomed son.

 

[wffurr]

> Apps targeting the new API (level 36) will now default to using edge-to-edge rendering, which removes the navigation background to make apps more immersive.

This breaks a bunch of apps, which will overlap system UI with content unless they're specifically coded to use system-provided insets for navigation and status bar. It's particularly egregious if you're a 3-button nav holdout like me. I miss the physical buttons on my T-Mobile G1.

 

[Mawich]

This breaks a bunch of apps, which will overlap system UI with content unless they're specifically coded to use system-provided insets for navigation and status bar. It's particularly egregious if you're a 3-button nav holdout like me. I miss the physical buttons on my T-Mobile G1.

Since it says they have to target the new API level, it shouldn't happen without the developer doing an update in which they should also be rejuggling the UI to cope...

I guess this is Google saying "if you want new stuff, you have to support screens we've been wanting you to support for years please"

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Hopefully at least one 'AI assistant' product manager dropped a tear into his cereal on seeing "The age of big, exciting Android updates is probably over."

 

[lslpp]

I dont even know what version im on anymore and dont care. Android updates have been boring since at least ~2014.

 

[TheMolesRevenge]

When you install Android 16 on one of Google's Pixel phones, you may need to check the settings to convince yourself that the update succeeded. Visually, the changes are so minuscule that you'll only notice them if you're obsessive about how Android works.

Thank the gods! I hate having to keep relearning the UI

 

[mobby_6kl]

Thank the gods! I hate having to keep relearning the UI

I hope they adjusted how rounded the icons are, at least!

 

[khoadley]

but it's important to remember that this is just Google's take on Android—other companies have their own software interests, mostly revolving around AI. We'll have to wait to see what Samsung, OnePlus, and others do with the first Android 16 release.

While I was reading this, my Samsung was updating OneUI to version 7. It finished about the time I finished the article, to be greeted with a noticeable different looking lock screen - and not an improvement. Followed by a nag screen to set up a Samsung account - which I always ignore. Followed by a screen telling me how Gemini Ai is not just a side button press away. Oh jolly D. Followed by another set of change to notifications vs quick access settings.

Frankly, I'd have preferred a boring and barely visible update.

 

[Tipler]

While I was reading this, my Samsung was updating OneUI to version 7. It finished about the time I finished the article, to be greeted with a noticeable different looking lock screen - and not an improvement. Followed by a nag screen to set up a Samsung account - which I always ignore. Followed by a screen telling me how Gemini Ai is not just a side button press away. Oh jolly D. Followed by another set of change to notifications vs quick access settings.

Frankly, I'd have preferred a boring and barely visible update.

I think it was OneUI 7 that introduced AutoBlocker, which seems to give many of the same security features mentioned; disable 2G, defeat USB cable exploits, remove geolocation from shared photos, prevent side-loading apps, ...

Too bad you ignore the Samsung Account - I think that yields access to Secure Folder, which is a fantastic feature. Could be wrong about needing the account however.

 

[Shiunbird]

I am very happy to see the UI/UX stabilize.

My grandfather is 91 and with a bit of a deteriorating eyesight. He can operate a computer very well, even managing to set up a wireless printer from his old 2007 iMac running Debian to his HP printer with Wifi.

However, he struggles a LOT when user interface elements change shape or position. I realized he relies a lot on muscle memory. For example, we used Skype until the very end to communicate because he could already very easily mute, start the camera, etc.. Skype hardly ever changed how it looked.

When we got Debian 12, I went a long way to make the interface look like Apple. A dock, window control widgets on the top right, etc.. He also struggles to find the stupid sandwich menus and prefers menu bars with proper labels and toolbar buttons set to label+text whenever possible.

He stays on an older Android device and will get a new one only when it stops being supported just because he doesn't want to relearn the interface.

Computers and phones are tools. Let's just be done with reinventing the wheel all the time, please.

 

[ItsHarold]

I'm guessing just more AI slop that doesn't solve any problems I have, and the increasing the ability to track more details?

 

[DarthSlack]

While not the most sexy improvement, the addition of Advanced Protection in Android 16 could keep many people from getting hit with malware, and it makes it harder for government entities to capture your data. This feature blocks insecure 2G connections, websites lacking HTTPS, and exploits over USB. It disables sideloading of apps, too, which might make some users wary.

Well this will be interesting for the 'anti-competitive' features regulators. If an OS provider offers a mode that disables access to alternative app stores, will the regulators barf on it. Certainly Tim Epic will be unhappy.

It's an optional feature that's off by default. I really don't see regulators giving it a second thought.

 

[citizencoyote]

While not the most sexy improvement, the addition of Advanced Protection in Android 16 could keep many people from getting hit with malware, and it makes it harder for government entities to capture your data. This feature blocks insecure 2G connections, websites lacking HTTPS, and exploits over USB. It disables sideloading of apps, too, which might make some users wary.

Well this will be interesting for the 'anti-competitive' features regulators. If an OS provider offers a mode that disables access to alternative app stores, will the regulators barf on it. Certainly Tim Epic will be unhappy.

Advanced Protection is an optional feature that must be turned on by the user, and can be turned off as well. I don't see any regulators viewing it as anti-competitive.

Edit: Ninja'd by DarthSlack

 

[marcopolomint]

I am very happy to see the UI/UX stabilize.

My grandfather is 91 and with a bit of a deteriorating eyesight. He can operate a computer very well, even managing to set up a wireless printer from his old 2007 iMac running Debian to his HP printer with Wifi.

However, he struggles a LOT when user interface elements change shape or position. I realized he relies a lot on muscle memory. For example, we used Skype until the very end to communicate because he could already very easily mute, start the camera, etc.. Skype hardly ever changed how it looked.

When we got Debian 12, I went a long way to make the interface look like Apple. A dock, window control widgets on the top right, etc.. He also struggles to find the stupid sandwich menus and prefers menu bars with proper labels and toolbar buttons set to label+text whenever possible.

He stays on an older Android device and will get a new one only when it stops being supported just because he doesn't want to relearn the interface.

Computers and phones are tools. Let's just be done with reinventing the wheel all the time, please.

This is a really good point. I wonder how many UX designers get to test on users from the older demographic, which is going to be an increasing number of people as the population ages out and still uses technology. I do appreciate aesthetics and 'eye candy' in mobile and desktop OSes even these days, but such changes should not mess with prior established functionality and muscle memories. Every single one of us is going to have difficulty with decreased visual acuity over time, and so the demarcation of buttons and their consistent placement is crucial.

What works for your 91 year-old grandfather will also work for everyone else on the planet.

Also, has to be said: your grandfather using Debian? That's awesome. My father had to stop using his computer and then phone because of onset of dementia, but your grandpa still very much has his marbles!

 

[valkyriebiker]

Notifications are the new spam -- a side door that bypasses (generally) already meager anti-spam efforts.

e.g. Notification spam is rampant on Windows to the extent it's one of the top questions clients ask me about how to stop.

 

[Velvet G]

Go to r/oneui and look at the endless whining about every single change. While it didn't bother me as much (I use Nova because I want consistency from phone to phone when I upgrade), it's clear that people want new features without breaking old things and reinventing the wheel for no reason. Are they over the top with the bitching? Yes, but I also had to deal with my father who was in full meltdown mode because this makes noise now, why did the battery icon change, etc.

I am all for change, but shit, please have the changes make sense. There are so many other things that needed to be addressed first. Notifications on the lock screen are trash now and the bubble is WAY too big. I'd rather have these big changes under the hood rather than making everything less user friendly. Big splash changes that nobody asked for or wanted aren't a good thing.

 

[oblixion]

Is there still no simple list of all notification history? If not, why not? What about being able to create a shortcut to any screen you're on, be that a settings screen, or in any app? Why not? They're morons, that's why. There are 30 other examples. I can't stand the way OBVIOUS features that should've been in version 1 will surely still be missing from 16.

Notification history has been available in the notification settings for quite some time. The next feature drop, QPR 1 currently in beta, has also added a button to directly access it from the notification pane.

 

[Eurynom0s]

On notification bundles, could not tell this from the article and not being an iPhone user am not familiar with how it works over there: does this mean we can now silence an entire app for X amount of time? The current Android implementation, where it'll just resurface the specific silenced message some amount of time later, is pretty useless IMO. What I want is that if a chat is blowing up with messages that I don't really need to see, I'd like to be able to silence that chat (or at least that app) for an hour our two, no need to bring the messages back up as unread notifications once that hour or two is over.

Google has also added a new category of notifications that can show progress, similar to a feature on the iPhone. The full notification will include a live updating bar that can tell you exactly when your Uber will show up, for example. These notifications will come first to delivery and rideshare apps, but none of them are working yet. You can get a preview of how these notifications will work with the Android 16 easter egg, which sends a little spaceship rocketing toward a distant planet.

This has been a thing my Samsung phones for I wanna say years now, very surprised this was a Samsung implementation and not a Google implementation.

 

[Eurynom0s]

Notifications are the new spam -- a side door that bypasses (generally) already meager anti-spam efforts.

e.g. Notification spam is rampant on Windows to the extent it's one of the top questions clients ask me about how to stop.

It's really bad on Windows 11 because it's not just a pop-up, it loudly dings at you each time one appears. You can kill all this easily with Do Not Disturb, but then Do Not Disturb causes problems with Quick Share. Checking my Windows 11 computer right now I apparently have DND off but somehow managed to kill the notifications without DND so that Quick Share will work (Quick Share explicitly just declines to work until you turn DND off with a message as such, it's not just a bug or whatever), honestly don't even remember for sure what I did but I wanna say I had to do something in regedit, which you should not have to fuck around in for something this basic QoL.

 

[DarthSlack]

Notifications are the new spam -- a side door that bypasses (generally) already meager anti-spam efforts.

e.g. Notification spam is rampant on Windows to the extent it's one of the top questions clients ask me about how to stop.

This, a million times this. Notification abuse is rampant and I'd really like to be able to allow an app to notify me about critical things (like my ride has just arrived) but not get endless crap about the new credit card I need or the sale that's currently going on.

As always, advertisers ruin everything.

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

It's an optional feature that's off by default. I really don't see regulators giving it a second thought.

It's also a case where(while Google could try harder to create a secure user key provisioning mechanism) there's a fairly obvious security justification. Not the usual, threadbare, "but we, like, have the intern and some scripts keeping the play store vaguely curated unlike the hive of scum and villainy that is the competition!" but the fairly high likelihood that Team Cellebrite or whoever has put some very focused time and attention into any gaps in the sideloading approval UI and the system activity happening behind it to try to build malware that can scrape stuff out of otherwise locked phones.

Ideal world the mechanism for blessing a repository would be secure enough that, at least for advanced users, the stupid 'store'/'sideload' dichotomy could be abandoned; but unless you have good reason to believe that that mechanism is suitably hardened; it's very likely that 'only the hardcoded repository' is a more difficult setting to tamper with.

 

[Hoptimist]

It's an optional feature that's off by default. I really don't see regulators giving it a second thought.

That's absolutely true, as long as it doesn't get any market traction as a feature. At 3% usage it is ignorable, if that percentage of use became 30% probably not. Then you would have the issue of why Google has preferential placement for the Google app store. That said, this is a good move for customers to have the option available.

 

[Eurynom0s]

Go to r/oneui and look at the endless whining about every single change. While it didn't bother me as much (I use Nova because I want consistency from phone to phone when I upgrade), it's clear that people want new features without breaking old things and reinventing the wheel for no reason. Are they over the top with the bitching? Yes, but I also had to deal with my father who was in full meltdown mode because this makes noise now, why did the battery icon change, etc.

I am all for change, but shit, please have the changes make sense. There are so many other things that needed to be addressed first. Notifications on the lock screen are trash now and the bubble is WAY too big. I'd rather have these big changes under the hood rather than making everything less user friendly. Big splash changes that nobody asked for or wanted aren't a good thing.

They at least let you turn off some of the worst of the recent changes but they should really have made the new changes opt-in. Lock Screen widgets are more annoying now with music controls getting banished to the pill instead of just being right on the screen. Home Screen widgets now inexplicably require way more space. What my Galaxy Buds controller widget used to be able to do in 2x1 now requires 4x1 to render properly. The Sleep Mode widget I made (since doing Modes from the Quick Menu you have to click that and then click a second time for Sleep Mode, this just brings you directly to Sleep Mode) used to be 1x1, now it won't even let you choose to make it smaller than 2x1.

I had to change my home screen from 4x5 to 4x6 in Home Up just to accommodate this widget bloat without adding an additional home screen. And of course absurd that they've now married live notifications to the active pill widget that eats up all your system bar space.

 

[fuzzyfuzzyfungus]

Notifications are the new spam -- a side door that bypasses (generally) already meager anti-spam efforts.

e.g. Notification spam is rampant on Windows to the extent it's one of the top questions clients ask me about how to stop.

They get used for phishing as well: Edge notifications appear to give you a lot of power in terms of images/formatting(I've not really looked from the dev side; wouldn't be entirely surprised if there is a browser rendering engine handling them); and we've seen a number of users somehow approve notifications from dodgysite[.]hax and then be hit with, honestly fairly convincing looking, simulations of 'zOMG Your Norton is Out of Date!!' type consumer antivirus traybar trash.

It's obvious to the informed viewer that they are edge notifications, the system doesn't hide that; but it spooks some of the jumpier users pretty well. We turned them off except for specific domains where someone has a business case.

 

[mlewis]

Since it says they have to target the new API level, it shouldn't happen without the developer doing an update in which they should also be rejuggling the UI to cope...

I guess this is Google saying "if you want new stuff, you have to support screens we've been wanting you to support for years please"

It has caused issues with an old app I have. The app in question hasn't been updated in years and has buttons at the top and bottom of the screen. These are now behind the notification bar and nav buttons. I can still just about use the bottom buttons but the top ones are unusable as tapping there will just trigger the notification shade.

 

[poenn]

iOS user here, but count me in on not wanting to relearn the UI all the time. Apple’s plan for the next release seems good so far, but I can confirm that muscle memory plays a big role, be it on a phone or on my desktop computer.

 

[Radovid]

Is the user still the product?

 

[bradley13]

Computers and phones are tools. Let's just be done with reinventing the wheel all the time, please.

This. I install the LTS versions of whatever I can, because I won't to use tools, not relearn them every time some UX weenie has a brainwave.

For desktop, I mostly use xfce, which has kept the same UI across LTS versions.

Add security, or features? Fine. But it's long past time to stop arbitrarily moving stuff around and changing the way things look.

 

[flunk]

I feel like smartphones are at a point where they're mostly "good enough", if my current phone lasted forever I'd probably never replace it. I feel the same way about Android.

I got this update the other day and didn't notice anything. I even read the release notes and nothing struck me as anything I would care about.

This isn't necessary a bad thing because it slows the cycle and makes phones last longer, but smartphones just aren't exciting anymore.

 

[DarthSlack]

It's also a case where(while Google could try harder to create a secure user key provisioning mechanism) there's a fairly obvious security justification. Not the usual, threadbare, "but we, like, have the intern and some scripts keeping the play store vaguely curated unlike the hive of scum and villainy that is the competition!" but the fairly high likelihood that Team Cellebrite or whoever has put some very focused time and attention into any gaps in the sideloading approval UI and the system activity happening behind it to try to build malware that can scrape stuff out of otherwise locked phones.

Ideal world the mechanism for blessing a repository would be secure enough that, at least for advanced users, the stupid 'store'/'sideload' dichotomy could be abandoned; but unless you have good reason to believe that that mechanism is suitably hardened; it's very likely that 'only the hardcoded repository' is a more difficult setting to tamper with.

I agree, this would be a better world. But I don't see Google (or Apple) wanting to be in the business of blessing app stores that aren't theirs. It's a huge hassle for little return and would probably raise more regulatory eyebrows than what they're currently doing.

 

[DarthSlack]

That's absolutely true, as long as it doesn't get any market traction as a feature. At 3% usage it is ignorable, if that percentage of use became 30% probably not. Then you would have the issue of why Google has preferential placement for the Google app store. That said, this is a good move for customers to have the option available.

Even at 30% usage, it's not a regulatory problem because it's opt-in. If Google is deliberately setting up unreasonable obstacles or playing favorites with app rankings/placement in their store, that's a completely different problem than enabling this feature on phones.

 

[RickyP784]

Since it says they have to target the new API level, it shouldn't happen without the developer doing an update in which they should also be rejuggling the UI to cope...

I guess this is Google saying "if you want new stuff, you have to support screens we've been wanting you to support for years please"

I've been seeing this on a couple of my apps in Android 15. The worst - when 15 deployed - was the Jimmy John's app; the System UI on top of the app UI made the latter literally unusable. I couldn't navigate backward or forward in the app or save order customizations. Fortunately, they were relatively quick to fix it when I left a review in the app store.

 

[kvndoom]

While I was reading this, my Samsung was updating OneUI to version 7. It finished about the time I finished the article, to be greeted with a noticeable different looking lock screen - and not an improvement. Followed by a nag screen to set up a Samsung account - which I always ignore. Followed by a screen telling me how Gemini Ai is not just a side button press away. Oh jolly D. Followed by another set of change to notifications vs quick access settings.

Frankly, I'd have preferred a boring and barely visible update.

You'll LOVE no longer seeing the Bluetooth icon in the status bar. That annoys the shit out of me, especially when my wife's car randomly connects to my phone instead of hers when she's in the driveway.

And the "now playing" media bar that takes up 1/4 of the status bar and can't be removed. I really need my actual notifications bumped off the screen so my eyes can tell me what my ears already know.

Stupid shit, top to bottom.

 

[RickyP784]

I am very happy to see the UI/UX stabilize.

My grandfather is 91 and with a bit of a deteriorating eyesight. He can operate a computer very well, even managing to set up a wireless printer from his old 2007 iMac running Debian to his HP printer with Wifi.

However, he struggles a LOT when user interface elements change shape or position. I realized he relies a lot on muscle memory. For example, we used Skype until the very end to communicate because he could already very easily mute, start the camera, etc.. Skype hardly ever changed how it looked.

When we got Debian 12, I went a long way to make the interface look like Apple. A dock, window control widgets on the top right, etc.. He also struggles to find the stupid sandwich menus and prefers menu bars with proper labels and toolbar buttons set to label+text whenever possible.

He stays on an older Android device and will get a new one only when it stops being supported just because he doesn't want to relearn the interface.

Computers and phones are tools. Let's just be done with reinventing the wheel all the time, please.

My old man moment started a few years ago, too. I got tired of having to relearn Android all the time and switched to Nova Launcher. It's not actively maintained anymore, but I love that I can export my app layout and settings to a file and import them on my new device. Everything is exactly where I left it so long as the apps are installed.

 

[RickyP784]

This, a million times this. Notification abuse is rampant and I'd really like to be able to allow an app to notify me about critical things (like my ride has just arrived) but not get endless crap about the new credit card I need or the sale that's currently going on.

As always, advertisers ruin everything.

Android randomly notified me last night to try out Gemini through the Tips and Tricks app (or whatever Google calls it). I used to have all notifications for it disabled, but they added a new category in 16. Not anymore, Satan.