Active Navigation, Ongoing Phone Calls, and more comes on Android 16 lock screen
Last month, Google unveiled the first stable version of Android 16, which included a number of new features. One of these is Live Updates, which shows real-time activity notifications on the lock screen of an Android phone. More details concerning this feature have now been released by the tech giant. In Android 16, live updates can be added to apps that provide services like food delivery, ride sharing, and phone calls, but not for marketing or promotions.
Live Updates in Android 16
Live Updates is modeled after the iPhone’s Live Activities feature. It gives notifications for an activity that has a clear start and end time and is currently underway. Google clarified on its developer page that the feature’s primary goal is to provide time-sensitive notifications rather than historical events.
Active navigation, continuous phone calls, tracking food deliveries, and tracking ride-sharing via their corresponding Android apps are a few of its use cases. These alerts, which provide information like tracking or ETA (estimated time of arrival), will appear on the lock screen of the Android handset.
According to the tech giant, it does away with the necessity of unlocking the phone in order to check the status. For instance, Google Maps will display directions in the home screen’s status chip when navigation is active, while Live Update on the lock screen will provide the trip’s current status and additional directions.
However, developers need to make sure that Live Updates only show actions that the user has deliberately triggered and should only show up if the activity requires the user’s attention for the duration of the update.
The company also described the Live Updates feature’s improper usage cases. Ads, promotions, chat messages, future calendar events, and alerts are all incompatible with it. Developers can leverage other OS components, like conventional notifications, for these. If they want to give users faster access to their app’s features, they can use the Quick Settings tile and app widgets.
However, there are several exceptions. Live updates may be triggered if a user signs up for an activity that has a time limit or buys concert or airplane tickets in advance, but only when the scheduled event is about to happen.
Stay connected with the latest from Droid Tools—follow us on X @droid_tools, like our page on Facebook, check out our updates on Instagram, and follow us on Google News for real-time news, device tips, and mobile tech insights.
Google Pixel Watch 4
Keep Reading
The Huawei Nova 17 Air is beginning to take shape in leaks, with the latest report pointing to a possible debut window of late November or early December this year. If accurate, it would mark the first Airy-branded model in the Nova lineup. Weibo leaker SuperDimensional reported that the Huawei Nova 17 Air, also referred […]
Early Geekbench results for the Snapdragon 6 Gen 5 show almost no CPU improvement over the Snapdragon 6 Gen 4, with the older chip actually edging it out in single-core performance. GPU gains look more promising, sitting around 20%, but raw processing power appears to be largely unchanged. Typically, when a company like Qualcomm releases […]
New software launches rarely go off without a hitch, and Android 17 is proving no different. Shortly after the update rolled out, Pixel owners began reporting connectivity problems — specifically, losing access to 5G entirely after installing the update. Reports surfaced on the Google Pixel subreddit, with multiple users across different device generations describing the […]
Huawei’s next Kirin 5G chipsets for the Mate 90 series are expected to deliver a meaningful performance step up over the 2025 versions, driven by a shift away from Moore’s Law toward Tau’s Scaling Law. According to a new leak, HarmonyOS 7 is being developed with this architectural shift in mind. Weibo leaker @FixedFocus reports […]
The Honor X70 Pro Max has arrived without any formal launch event, slipping onto the market with a focus on durability, battery endurance, and a capable Qualcomm chipset. The phone comes in four color options: Phantom Purple, Sunburst Gold, Bamboo Rhythm Green, and Phantom Night Black. It measures 161.9 x 76.1 x 7.76mm and weighs […]
If Samsung Messages is still the default texting app on a Galaxy phone, July is going to require some attention. The app is being deactivated for US users, and texts, RCS conversations, and message history stored inside it won’t move anywhere on their own. Everything is transitioning to Google Messages – and while the migration […]
Comments & Discussions
Join the conversation! We use Disqus to handle comments. Click the button below to load the comment section.