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  • Android 16 introduces Live Updates, a new class of notifications for ongoing activities.
  • Live Updates are prominently displayed on the lock screen as well as on the status bar.
  • These notifications are intended for rideshare pickups, food delivery alerts, navigation, and other use cases.

If you’re waiting for your Uber driver to arrive, then you’re probably either glued to the Uber app or periodically pulling down the notifications panel to see where they are. Your friends with iPhones don’t need to keep the Uber app open or manually check their notifications, though, thanks to Uber’s support for Live Activities on iOS. Android currently lacks an equivalent to Live Activities, but that’s changing in Android 16 with the introduction of Live Updates.

A Live Activity in iOS is a type of notification that displays frequently updated information, such as the status of a flight, rideshare, delivery, or sporting event. Live Activities are shown on top of the iPhone’s Dynamic Island and the lock screen, making them easily visible. Android offers various notification types, including heads-up notifications, which appear briefly in a floating window above the status bar. Unlike Live Activities, which persist and update in place, frequent updates using heads-up notifications would require numerous individual notifications, potentially becoming intrusive. The new Live Updates feature in Android 16 aims to address this limitation.