Android 16 could let apps show Dynamic Island-like notifications

[phillynews215]

• Google may introduce a new API that lets apps create Rich Ongoing Notifications in Android 16.
• Rich Ongoing Notifications will appear as chips in the status bar.
• The feature seems somewhat like Apple’s Dynamic Island on iPhones, though technically Android used status bar chips in the past.

Notifications are one of the most important features of any operating system, especially mobile ones like Android where most apps aren’t always running. That’s why Google is constantly tinkering with notifications to make them more useful, less distracting, or both. In recent releases of Android, for example, Google made every notification dismissible, minimized heads-up notifications while displaying videos, and blocked old notifications. Next year’s Android 16 update could introduce even bigger changes to notifications on Android by letting apps create Rich Ongoing Notifications.

From what I’ve managed to glean from the latest Android 15 QPR1 Beta 3 release, Rich Ongoing Notifications is a new API that lets apps show more than just an icon in the status bar. The API will let apps create chips with their own text and background color that live in the status bar, sort of like the new screen recording chips that Google introduced in the previous Android beta update. It’s likely that tapping these chips will open some sort of dialog provided by the app that shows more information about the ongoing notification, which is, again, similar to the new screen recording system that Google just rolled out.




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