Google confirms: Android 16 is launching early and there will be a second release in 2025

At the beginning of this month a rumor claimed Google would launch Android 16 earlier than its predecessors. Today, Google itself has confirmed this.

Android 16, the finalized version, will be out in the second quarter of next year, so between April and June. The company says it's doing this "to better align with the schedule of device launches" across the Android ecosystem.

This year, the Pixel 9 family arrived in August with Android 14 on board, even though Google was already working on Android 15 - which eventually came out a couple of weeks ago. If Google manages to release Android 16 before the end of June, then the Pixel 10 devices will launch with it on board from day one, but so will Samsung's next-gen foldables, which should become official in July.

Interestingly, Google says there will be a second Android release in 2025, this one coming in the fourth quarter (October to December), but it will be a "minor release" that will "pick up feature updates, optimizations, and bug fixes since the major release". To us this sounds like we're getting Android 16.1 around this time next year.