{"id":33286,"date":"2025-07-02T18:46:11","date_gmt":"2025-07-02T18:46:11","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33286\/"},"modified":"2025-07-02T18:46:11","modified_gmt":"2025-07-02T18:46:11","slug":"android-16-qpr1-adds-full-support-for-live-updates-but-apps-will-need-changes","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/33286\/","title":{"rendered":"Android 16 QPR1 adds full support for Live Updates, but apps will need changes"},"content":{"rendered":"<p><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"eager\"  title=\"Live Updates on a Pixel 9 Pro running Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Live Updates on a Pixel 9 Pro running Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Live-Updates-on-a-Pixel-9-Pro-running-Android-16-QPR1-scaled.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mishaal Rahman \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p>TL;DR<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Google is preparing to launch \u201cLive Updates,\u201d a feature similar to iOS\u2019s Live Activities that prominently displays progress-style notifications.<\/li>\n<li>Once live, these special notifications will appear fully expanded on the lock screen and as a persistent chip in the status bar for at-a-glance updates.<\/li>\n<li>The feature is already fully functional in the latest Android 16 QPR1 beta, suggesting it will likely roll out in the next quarterly update.<\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p>Google\u2019s stable <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-16-review-3566047\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Android 16<\/a> update, released last month, brought many under the hood changes, but most of its major user-facing features aren\u2019t live yet. A key example is <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-16-live-updates-3556651\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Live Updates<\/a>, Android\u2019s version of iOS\u2019s Live Activities. These are a special type of notification designed to be prominently displayed on the status bar and lock screen. While the stable Android 16 release adds preliminary support by allowing apps to create these notifications, the OS doesn\u2019t yet treat them any differently from standard ones. However, full support for the Live Updates feature is just around the corner, as it\u2019s already active in the latest beta release and could arrive in the next quarterly update.<\/p>\n<p>\nYou\u2019re reading an <strong>Authority Insights<\/strong> story. Discover <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/tag\/authority-insights\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Authority Insights<\/a> for more exclusive reports, app teardowns, leaks, and in-depth tech coverage you won\u2019t find anywhere else. These reports reflect developments at the time of writing. Some features or details uncovered in leaks may change before official release.<\/p>\n<p>The stable release of Android 16 provides the foundation for Live Updates by introducing a new \u201cprogress-style\u201d notification template. This template simplifies the process for developers to add progress bars to their app notifications \u2014 something especially useful for rideshare, food delivery, and navigation services. While this isn\u2019t entirely new functionality, as apps like Uber already use custom-built progress bars, the new template means developers no longer need to build them from scratch.<\/p>\n<p>Currently, Android 16 treats these progress-style notifications just like any other. However, the Live Updates feature will elevate them. Once active, progress-style notifications will appear fully expanded on the always-on display and lock screen, eliminating the need to wake the screen or pull down the notification shade. Furthermore, apps supporting Live Updates can push short messages to an always-visible status bar chip. Tapping this chip will reveal the full progress notification, offering a quick glance at an update without interrupting your workflow.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Demo of Live Updates from Uber Eats in Android 16\"  alt=\"Demo of Live Updates from Uber Eats in Android 16\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Demo-of-Live-Updates-from-Uber-Eats-in-Android-16.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>An example of Live Updates from the Uber Eats app on the AOD (left), lock screen (left middle), status bar (right middle), and heads-up notification (right).<\/p>\n<p>While Google confirmed that full support for Live Updates will arrive on Pixel phones later this year, the company never specified exactly when. When the first <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-16-qpr1-beta-1-best-worst-changes-3560333\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Android 16 QPR1 betas<\/a> rolled out, the feature appeared to be disabled, as neither our test app nor the <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-16-easter-egg-3533677\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">Android 16 Easter egg<\/a> triggered the full experience. The reason, it turns out, is that Google changed the requirements for a notification to be promoted to a Live Update.<\/p>\n<p>Previously, I demonstrated that notifications needed to meet three criteria to qualify as a Live Update: they had to use the new progress-style template, be marked as ongoing, and provide a short summary for the status bar chip. With these in place, a notification would become a Live Update, assuming the feature was enabled in the OS.<\/p>\n<p>The Live Updates feature is disabled by default in the stable Android 16 release but is active in the QPR1 beta. However, for a notification to be promoted in the beta, it must now meet additional criteria. The two main changes are that the app must declare the new POST_PROMOTED_NOTIFICATIONS permission and call the requestPromotedOngoing API. While there are other minor requirements, these two additions are the key changes from the stable release of Android 16.<\/p>\n<p>Using a lightly modified version of Google\u2019s <a href=\"https:\/\/github.com\/android\/platform-samples\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\">sample app<\/a> on my Pixel 9 Pro running Android 16 QPR1 Beta 2, I was able to get the full Live Updates experience working. The feature functions exactly as expected, with the notification appearing fully expanded on the lock screen and as a chip in the status bar.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Live Update on the lock screen in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Live Update on the lock screen in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Live-Update-on-the-lock-screen-in-Android-16-QPR1-scaled.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Mishaal Rahman \/ Android Authority<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Custom Live Update showing as status bar chip in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Custom Live Update showing as status bar chip in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Custom-Live-Update-showing-as-status-bar-chip-in-Android-16-QPR1.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Custom Live Update expanded from status bar chip in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Custom Live Update expanded from status bar chip in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Custom-Live-Update-expanded-from-status-bar-chip-in-Android-16-QPR1.png\"\/><\/p>\n<p>It even looks quite nice on the always-on display; the notification is presented as a clean outline, which helps it stand out <a href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/wallpaper-on-aod-android-16-qpr1-3563717\/\" rel=\"nofollow noopener\" target=\"_blank\">against a wallpaper<\/a>.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Live Update on the AOD in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Live Update on the AOD in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Live-Update-on-the-AOD-in-Android-16-QPR1.jpg\"\/><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Live Update on the AOD with a wallpaper in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Live Update on the AOD with a wallpaper in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Live-Update-on-the-AOD-with-a-wallpaper-in-Android-16-QPR1.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Managing Live Updates is also straightforward. You can press and hold a notification and tap \u201cTurn off,\u201d or you can disable the feature from the app\u2019s main notification settings page.<\/p>\n<p><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Turning off a Live Update from a notification in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Turning off a Live Update from a notification in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Turning-off-a-Live-Update-from-a-notification-in-Android-16-QPR1.png\"\/><img class=\"e_Wg\" decoding=\"async\" loading=\"lazy\"  title=\"Setting for Live Updates in Android 16 QPR1\"  alt=\"Setting for Live Updates in Android 16 QPR1\" src=\"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-content\/uploads\/2025\/07\/Setting-for-Live-Updates-in-Android-16-QPR1.jpg\"\/><\/p>\n<p>Given that Live Updates is fully functional in the Android 16 QPR1 beta, a formal announcement from Google likely isn\u2019t far off. Developers need to know that the feature is live so they can add support for it, so the longer Google waits to announce it, the longer users will have to wait for their favorite apps to roll it out.<\/p>\n<p><strong>Got a tip? Talk to us!<\/strong>\u00a0Email our staff at <a class=\"c-link\" href=\"https:\/\/www.androidauthority.com\/android-16-qpr1-live-updates-3573399\/mailto:news@androidauthority.com\" rel=\"noopener noreferrer nofollow\" data-stringify-link=\"mailto:tips@androidauthority.com\" data-sk=\"tooltip_parent\" aria-haspopup=\"menu\" target=\"_blank\">news@androidauthority.com<\/a>. You can stay anonymous or get credit for the info, it&#8217;s your choice.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Mishaal Rahman \/ Android Authority TL;DR Google is preparing to launch \u201cLive Updates,\u201d a feature similar to iOS\u2019s&hellip;\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":33287,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[17],"tags":[4600,11703,611,158,67,132,68],"class_list":{"0":"post-33286","1":"post","2":"type-post","3":"status-publish","4":"format-standard","5":"has-post-thumbnail","7":"category-mobile","8":"tag-android-16","9":"tag-authority-insights","10":"tag-mobile","11":"tag-technology","12":"tag-united-states","13":"tag-unitedstates","14":"tag-us"},"share_on_mastodon":{"url":"https:\/\/pubeurope.com\/@us\/114785129817757255","error":""},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33286","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33286"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33286\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/33287"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33286"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33286"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/us\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33286"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}