The boring beginnings of Android 16 are a bit older note at worst time

Google published Android 16 to Pixel users this week, an early version and a large step. But despite this update that really has a lot to offer in the long term, he made an incredibly boring start for users, and at a time when Android really has a chance to shine above his main competition.

This 9TO5GOOGLE Weekender issue is part of the restarting newsletter of 9TO5GOOGLE which highlights the biggest Google stories with additional comments and other songs. Register here To have it delivered early in your reception box!

Android 16 is a confusing version for a number of reasons, starting with its version calendar. Google usually launches new Android versions around September, but the first Stable Android 16 version takes place in June, ahead of the usual calendar. We knew it happened, but it is always a strange change.

But the chronology really does not matter.

Advertising – Scroll for more content

What is important is that the impact of Android 16 is divided in two.

The initial stable version of this week is, for lack of a better word, just boring.

Visually, it is identical to Android 15, and there are very few significant functional changes either. As we have detailed; Google now obliges the notifications of the same application to be registered, advanced protection introduces additional protection against dangerous websites, harmful applications, scam calls, and even more, you can now double the power button to open your portfolio application, pixel phones get new “Battery Health” and Bluetooth Le, and Health Connect. In terms of changes oriented by users, it is indeed in Android 16. Pixel owners obtain a bunch of new graceful features of the functionality of June, but they are not technically part of Android 16 itself.

All the funny funny things in Android 16 are buried under the hood and yet have an impact – like live notifications, which will not deploy applications for a certain time – or coming in the QPR1 update in a few months. The expressive redesign of Big Material 3 of Android, the biggest change we have seen on the platform for years, simply does not exist in the update that was deployed earlier this week. This does not make the overhaul less exciting, but it simply creates a feeling of disappointment on the part of the user who installs Android 16 this week, only to note that nothing has changed.

This is a problem.

Android is already suffering from poorly placed expectations and has been doing it for years. Users of a device are often missing from features found on others, or get them much later than their peers. The word F, “fragmentation”, does not mean what it used to do for Android users, but it can often feel this.

It hurts even more because the great overhaul of Android 16 is really good.

Although there are still polarizing aspects of expressive equipment 3, Google has received almost universal praise for the overhaul. This is essentially the full opposite of the current Apple situation. The company showed iOS 26 this week with its new overhaul “Liquid Glass” and … let’s just say that opinions are mixed. Although there are good aspects in this new design language, many have criticized Apple on the countless problems of readability in the update, while many other users simply do not like the look. After having used it myself, I think that the “liquid glass” looks like an expensive version of an iOS with cheap iOS. Comparisons with the start of Android Android icon packs are also incredibly appropriate. There is potential here, but as I said earlier this week, I think Apple’s incredible attention was just in the wrong place.

… It is not as if the “liquid glass” is without its qualities of buyout. From Real -time reflections and updates based on the position of the phonemore just the skémorph look of How user interface elements interact as a real glassApple’s attention to details is incredible. It is simply obvious that attention may have been on bad details.

If Google can properly announce the overhaul of Android 16, it may have a chance to actually attract a handful of users far from iOS when this update deploys. Waiting for apple by bringing great changes to this design, I could see a lot People looking elsewhere with their next phone once the “liquid glass” takes place to everyone. But by rejecting the expressive equipment 3 to a unanmed quarterly update, Google ruined its greatest form of integrated advertising, and it is even before we consider that Google almost surely does not speak of expressive Material 3 when its new launch of pixels – this energy will be almost certainly used to speak of Gemini instead.

In months, the first stable version of Android 16 will probably only be a distant memory because the expressive equipment becomes the standard, but I can’t help but think that Google is missing great oppurtility here. An early version of Android 16 seems only meaningless without this great change which, clearly, would have been ready in time for the usual calendar anyway.

What do you think?