Google’s stable Android 16 The update, released last month, brought many under hood changes, but most of its major user-supporting characteristics are not yet live. A prominent example is live updateAndroid version of live activities of iOS. This is a special type of notification that is displayed prominently on the status bar and lock screen. While steady Android 16 releases these notifications add initial support to make apps, OS does not yet treat them differently from the standard. However, the full support for live update facility is around the corner, as it is already active in the latest beta release and may come in the next quarterly update.

The stable release of Android 16 provides the foundation of live updates by launching a new “progress-style” notification template. This template for developers simplifies the process of adding the progress bar to their app notifications – especially some useful for rideshare, food distribution and navigation services. Although this is not completely new functionality, apps like Uber already use custom-made progress bar, new template means that developers no longer need to make them from scratch.

Currently, Android 16 considers the information of these progress-style similar to someone else. However, live update facilities will raise them. Once activated, the information of progress-style will always appear to be fully extended on the display and lock screen, ending the need to awaken the screen or draw down the notification shade. In addition, apps supporting live updates can always push short messages into the chip. Tapping this chip will detect full progress notification, offering a quick look at an update without disrupting your workflow.

While Google confirmed that full support for live updates would come on the Pixel phone later this year, the company never specified. When first Android 16 QPR1 Betus Roll out, feature appeared disabled, neither as our test app Android 16 Easter Egg Trigated full experience. The reason for this, it turns out that Google changed the requirements for a notification to be promoted to a live update.

Previously, I displayed that information was required to fulfill three criteria to qualify as a live update: they had to use new progress-style templates, to be marked as current, and providing a small summary for the status bar chip. With these, a notification would become a live update, assuming that this feature was capable in OS.

The live update feature is disabled by default in stable Android 16 release, but QPR1 is active in beta. However, for information about being promoted in beta, it will now have to meet additional criteria. There are two main changes that the app has to be declared new POST_PROMOTED_NOTIFICATIONS Permission and call requestPromotedOngoing APIWhile there are other minor requirements, these are significant changes from the steady release of two additions Android 16.

Using a mild modified version of Google Sample app On Android 16 QPR1 beta 2 on my Pixel 9 Pro, I was able to work full live update. This feature acts absolutely expected, with the notification being fully expanded on the lock screen and as a chip in the status bar.

Even it always looks quite good on the display; The notification is presented as a clean framework, which helps it stand out Against a wallpaper,

The management of live updates is also straightforward. You can suppress a notification and tap on “turn off”, or you can disable the feature from the main notification settings page of the app.

Given that the live update in Android 16 QPR1 beta is perfectly functional, a formal announcement of Google is not far away. Developers need to know that this feature is live so that they can add support for it, so Google wait for a long time to announce it, for a long time users will have to wait for their favorite apps to roll it out.