Android 16’s boring debut is a sour note on the big update, and at the worst time

Ben Schoon | Jun 15 2025 - 12:00 pm PT

Google released Android 16 to Pixel users this week, an early release and a big milestone. But despite this update truly having a lot to offer in the long run, it has made an incredibly boring debut for users, and at a time where Android really has a chance to shine above its main competition.

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Android 16 is a confusing release for a number of reasons, starting with its release timeline. Google usually launches new Android versions around September, but the first stable Android 16 release is taking place in June, way ahead of the usual schedule. We knew this was happening, but it’s still a strange change.

But the timeline really doesn’t matter.

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What matter is that Android 16’s impact is being split in two.

This week’s initial stable release is, for lack of a better word, just boring.

Visually, it’s identical to Android 15, and there are very few meaningful functional changes either. As we detailed; Google now forces notifications from the same app to group together, Advanced Protection introduces further protection against unsafe websites, harmful apps, scam calls, and more, you can now double-tap the power button to open your wallet app, Pixel phones get a new “Battery health” feature and Bluetooth LE features, and Health Connect now supports medical records. In terms of user-facing changes, that’s effectively it in Android 16. Pixel owners get a bunch of new features courtesy of the June Feature Drop, but these aren’t technically a part of Android 16 itself.

All of the real fun stuff in Android 16 is either buried under the hood and yet to make an impact – like Live Notifications, which won’t roll out to apps for a while – or coming in the QPR1 update in a few months. The big Material 3 Expressive redesign of Android, the biggest change we’ve seen to the platform in years, simply doesn’t exist in the update that rolled out earlier this week. That doesn’t make the redesign any less exciting, but it just creates a sense of disappointment from user who are installing Android 16 this week, only to find that nothing has changed.

That’s a problem.

Android already suffers from misplaced expectations, and has for years. Users on one device are often missing features found on others, or get them far later than their peers. The F-word, “fragmentation,” doesn’t mean what it once did for Android users, but it can often still feel that way.

This hurts all the more because Android 16’s big redesign is really good.

While there are still some polarizing aspects of Material 3 Expressive, Google has received almost universal praise for the revamp. That’s essentially the complete opposite of Apple’s current situation. The company showed off iOS 26 this week with its new “Liquid Glass” redesign and… let’s just say opinions are mixed. While there are some good aspects to this new design language, many have criticized Apple over the countless readability issues in the update, while plenty of other users simply don’t like the look. Having used it myself, I think “Liquid Glass” just looks like an expensive version of a cheap iOS knock-off. Comparisons to early 2010s Android icon packs are also incredibly apt. There’s potential here, but as I said earlier this week, I think Apple’s incredible attention to detail was just in the wrong place.

…it’s not like “Liquid Glass” is without its redeeming qualities. From real-time reflections and updates based on the position of the phone, plus just the skeumorphic look of how UI elements interact like real glass, Apple’s attention to detail is amazing. It’s just obvious that the attention may have been on the wrong details.

If Google can properly advertise Android 16’s redesign, it might stand a chance of actually attracting a handful of users away from iOS when this update rolls out. Pending Apple making any big changes to this design, I could see a lot of people looking elsewhere with their next phone once “Liquid Glass” rolls out to everyone. But by pushing Material 3 Expressive back to an unanmed quarterly update, Google has ruined its biggest built-in form of advertising, and that’s before we even consider that Google almost surely won’t talk about Material 3 Expressive when its new Pixels launch – that energy will almost certainly be used to talk about Gemini instead.

Months from now, Android 16’s first stable release will likely be but a distant memory as Material 3 Expressive becomes the norm, but I can’t help but feel like Google is missing a big oppurtunity here. An early Android 16 release just feels meaningless without this big change that, clearly, would have been ready in time for the usual schedule anyway.