The launch of Android 15 is one of the strangest in the history of the system, especially compared to that of Android 14. While the previous version was adopted very quickly by all manufacturers and its launch was synchronized with that of the Pixel 8, this year where we see many delays and problems in the adoption of Android 15despite the fact that in theory it is not a revolutionary update.
The best indicator that something is wrong with Android 15 adoption is that the Google Pixels weren’t the first to get it; vivo presented its Funtouch OS 15 and other brands like OPPO have already presented their versions. On the other hand, one manufacturer facing a difficult time is Samsung, which went from being the first to adopt Android 14 to having to delay Android 15 until early 2025.
Android 15 is a “rare” version of the system, and now comes another twist in the script: it may also be one of the versions that will last the shortest on the market. Last weekend, Google announced the development plan for the next version, and the surprise is that Android 16 will arrive much sooner than expected.
Concretely, according to Google’s projects, Android 16 will arrive in the second quarter of 2025it could therefore be launched between the months of April and June; Remember that Android 15 was launched last September, so its successor could only arrive between seven and ten months later, without reaching a year between versions as usual.
In fact, the launch of Android 16 would be the oldest in recent Android history; You’d have to upgrade to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean, released in July 2012, to find anything similar, and only Android 3.0 Honeycomb, released in February 2011, was released before that. But those were different times, when Google released a new version of Android every few months and development was very accelerated. For more than ten years, Android development has stabilized and it is common for about a year to pass between releases.
Google has not hidden the real reason for this change: it was made to “better align with device launches”, in other words, so that The next Pixel 10 will come with Android 16 out of the box. Remember that this year the Pixel 9 was still launched with Android 14 because its launch had been brought forward to the summer to better compete with Apple’s iPhone. It is obvious that Google does not want the story of a third party launching the new version of Android to repeat itself.
The consequences of this change can be notable. For starters, Android 16 is unlikely to bring big changes compared to Android 15, as development has been focused on a few months to bring forward the launch. Brands will need to adapt to the new schedule and start developing your new layers of personalization sooner than ever.
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Samsung is perhaps one of the most affected by this change, but also one of those who benefit the most from it (apart from Google). The launch of One UI 7.0 based on Android 15 is expected in early 2025, with the new Galaxy S25; this means that Samsung would barely have three months before their system becomes “obsolete”. The good news is that the launch of Android 16 could coincide with that of Samsung’s new foldables, which could come with One UI 8.0 as standard.
