Android 16 will introduce Live Updates, a new class of notification that's always on top. Here's how it compare to iOS Live Activities.

Android 16 is adding support for pinned notifications that show live info from apps.

TL;DR

  • 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 this doesn’t sound like anything new to you, I don’t blame you. After all, rideshare apps like Uber have already been showing notifications like this for years now. Uber had to do a lot of custom stuff to make its notifications look like that on Android, though. Google has basically created a standardized version of what Uber’s been doing. With the new progress-centric notifications in Android 16, any app can create notifications like Uber.