- Google Maps has become the first application to support live updates in the last Android 16 Beta
- The new notification style allows certain information to persist on the lock screen and the status bar
- Android 16 should go out for some time between April and June 2025
Although many of the best Android phones have recently supported Android 15, the beta versions of Android 16 are already available for users of Google Pixel, providing key upgrades to the operating system as well as Google’s default applications.
One of the most awaited upcoming upgrades to come with Android 16 is live updates, a new notification feature that allows notifications to display much more information and persist on the lock screen. A comparable feature, called live activities, was deployed on iOS devices last year.
It turns out that Google Maps is the first application to support this new feature, Android 16 adding the possibility of seeing the instructions, the time until your next round and your estimated time of arrival in a live update notification.
This new live update is visible on the lock screen, and an estimated arrival period persists in the status bar when the phone is unlocked, but as Android Authority notes, the new notification style is currently collapsed on the screen.
In an earlier construction of Android 16, live updates were available on the display always as a contour, so Google will probably reactivate this in the stable version or subsequent beta.
The live updates were technically introduced with the first beta version of Android 16 in January 2025, but as mentioned, no application has supported them so far.
Android 16 takes place at a faster pace than normal, and we previously heard that the next main update of the Google mobile operating system will arrive earlier than usual in the second quarter of 2025 – it is somewhere April and June.
The update should provide live updates to a wide selection of the best Google Pixel phones as well as Android phones from other brands like Samsung and OnePlus. Of course, there is much more on the way than a new notification style – other Android features 16 carefully expected include new camera tools and better resuming applications for folding phones.
We will have the latest people thanks to our dedicated Android coverage, but for the moment, let us know what you would like to see in the next Google mobile operating system in the comments below.
