Google releases a new version of Android every year, and since 2013 the releases have all taken place between August and November. However, that may change with Android 16.
While Android 15 is only expected to roll out to supported Pixels on October 15Google seems to be already thinking about releasing Android 16 much earlier than usual – sometime in the second quarter of next year, so between April and June.
That would be a pretty significant change in strategy, but Google similarly shifted its hardware announcement this year from the usual October to August, creating the strange situation where the new Pixels launched with Android 14 on board because Android 15 was not ready yet.
If Android 16 arrives in late June next year and Google sticks to August for the next hardware reveal, the Pixel 10 series will have no problem running Android 16 out-of-the-box.
The news of Android 16’s Q2 release comes from a deep dive into Google’s Android 15 Compatibility Definition document for developers, as well as several patches for the Android Open Source Project, all of which point to major changes coming to “25Q2” or “25Q2 are pushed. /Android W”. W is the letter of the alphabet after V, and Android 15 was codenamed Vanilla Ice Cream, so W is clearly Android 16 (that said, Google apparently decided to skip a few letters and recently introduced Baklava to mention).
Of course, these are just hints and nothing has been finalized yet. Even if that were the case, things could still change: both Android 15 and Android 14 had delayed releases due to last-minute issues, so that could happen to Android 16 as well. But with a Q2 release, it would at least be Apple’s annual iOS outing, for what that’s worth.