- Google is preparing to upgrade Android’s regional preferences menu with a new setting to specify your preferred measurement system.
- Android will soon also let you set your current region independently of the system language.
- These changes aren’t live yet in Android 16 Beta 1, but I managed to activate them for an early preview.
With billions of active users, Android is the world’s most popular mobile operating system. It offers built-in support for nearly every widely spoken language, making it usable regardless of a person’s location. To keep things simple, apps infer what region you’re in from the system language. This is fine for most people, but it can be problematic for international students, immigrants, temporary workers, or other people who want apps to show units relevant to their current region while keeping their phone in a language they better understand.
Fortunately, Google plans to decouple region from the system language preference in Android 16. This means you’ll be able to use your phone in your preferred language while still seeing dates, numbers, and measurements formatted for your actual location.