ByDavid Phelan,
Senior Contributor.
Google makes one big Android release a year — until now. This week, Android 16 QPR2 has been released. It’s a minor update, but one that means there should be greater flexibility and, therefore, faster innovation, Google says. It’s arrived for Google Pixel phones like the Pixel 10 Pro, but will come to Samsung Galaxy S25 and other phones soon — likely sooner than under the previous Android release schedule.
The new release comes after the initial arrival of Android 16 in the first half of 2025. Here’s why that’s important.
‘These small biannual SDK releases will be the model going forward, alongside bringing major releases forward — with Android 16 having launched in Q2 instead of Q3, for example — and the usual quarterly Android feature updates. By moving to an earlier, more frequent release schedule for developer previews and general release rollouts, third-party phone makers will have more time to prepare their latest devices to launch with the latest version of Android,” Jess Weatherbed reports at The Verge.
