- Alongside the big Android 16 release in Q2 of 2025, Google will also roll out a minor Android release in Q4 with new developer APIs.
- Going forward, Android will have more of these minor releases so that Google can bring new APIs in front of apps more quickly.
- However, these minor releases won’t have any app-impacting behavior changes.
Every year, Google releases a major version of Android that brings new APIs to the table, and in 2025, that version will be called Android 16. The company also regularly releases minor updates to Android called quarterly platform releases (QPRs), but these updates typically only bring new features and not any new APIs. Rarely, though, Google will push out a QPR that does have new APIs, necessitating a bump in the SDK version as well as a new name. The last time it did this was with 12L back in 2022, and before that, with 8.1 in 2017, but Google is now overhauling Android’s release schedule so that it can push out more of these kinds of minor releases.
Earlier today, Google announced that Android will have more frequent SDK releases going forward and that two releases with new developer APIs are planned for 2025. The first release will happen in Q2 of 2025, and it’ll be the big Android 16 update.