(Credit: Google)
Google this week gave us a peek at Android 16's design concept, which is intended to make Google’s mobile operating system feel bouncier and breezier.
In past years, Google has saved its Android introductions for I/O, but this year, it hosted an online event, The Android Show: I/O Edition, a week before that developer conference. We got all the details at a press roundtable this week; here's what’s next for Android.
We're Living in a Material 3 Expressive World
Google’s pitch leads off with a new design vocabulary it calls Material 3 Expressive, the latest iteration on the "Material You" design it shipped in 2021’s Android 12. Google’s VP of Product and UX for Android Platform Mindy Brooks sums it up as "more fluid, natural, and springy animations.”
These changes go beyond visual effects to include touch-feedback elements, like the “incredibly satisfying haptic rumble” when you dismiss a notification.
The new design language also opens new ways for apps in Android 16 to solicit your attention with real-time notifications of their work, in the form of lock-screen widgets and glanceable live-update notifications that may evoke Apple’s Dynamic Island.
But as Google underscored when it outlined this feature for developers in the first beta release of Android 16, live updates are only for navigation, ride-hailing services, and delivery apps.
Other changes in Android 16’s visual vocabulary aim to make this software and apps running on it fit better on the larger screens of foldable phones and Android tablets.
Android smartwatches get some attention in this release too, in the form of optimizations for round displays that increasingly set that part of the smartwatch market apart from Apple’s more-squared-off watches, plus the addition of color theming.
Brooks closed out the interface part of the roundtable with a nod to priorities: “We're also making sure these updates are really performant and won't drain your battery.” On that note, Google says Material 3 Expressive on Wear OS 6 “delivers up to 10% more battery life.”
Reality check: While Google’s apps should support these changes quickly (with the probable exception of the long-neglected Google Voice), third-party developers may not be equally enthused about the new look. And in the hands of phone vendors such as Samsung with a history of applying their own interface layers to Android, Material 3 Expressive may get remixed.