However, Google announced at the end of last month that it’s accelerating Android’s release schedule. The company confirmed it plans to release Android 16 sometime in Q2 of 2025. One leak points towards a June 3, 2025, release date for Android 16, but that hasn’t been confirmed yet.

If you're an Android fan, you might be used to the typical rollout for Android developer previews: Google usually drops the first preview in February, so the fact that the company seeded Android 16's first developer preview in November—three months ahead of schedule—is quite surprising.

Google is only making Android 16 Developer Preview 1 available for manual download so that users don’t accidentally install it, as it’s not intended for consumer use. However, after installing the first developer preview, enrolled devices will automatically get OTA updates for future previews and beta releases.