Better Security and New Appearance

New Design: Here Are the Updates in Android 16

When Google presents the updates in Android 16, it is primarily the new appearance that stands out.

Published 22 May 2025 - 10:16

The actual functional updates are becoming fewer with each new Android version, and this year Google has also brought forward the launch of the new Android to get into a better cycle than when the system comes in the autumn. But a major change in appearance is something that will be hard to avoid.

It's not a completely new design language, it's still version 3 of Google's Material guidelines that apply, but the updated version is called Material 3 Expressive.

Material helps to give all content on the mobile a unified and intuitive feel but has almost been too good at it. According to Google, the development of Material 3 Expressive began with the question of why all apps had the same boring appearance.

More variation and easier to grasp

The goal has thus been to create more variation possibilities for app developers and more lively system animations. Material 3 Expressive mostly consists of additions to Material 3 in the form of new types of buttons, menus, and other elements. At the same time, they wanted to improve usability and have therefore conducted 46 ergonomic studies with a total of 18,000 participants where they tested different design elements. The goal has been to increase clarity and thereby make it faster to use the system while creating more dynamics in the appearance.

An example from the studies was when they experimented with the Gmail app. In its current form, the send button, when you have written an email, appears as an icon without explanatory text alongside other icons in the upper right corner. After moving the button, giving it a different colour, and adding text, it became much faster for users to write and send emails, especially for people who still feel unfamiliar with the system.

As always with new design guidelines, it will take time before they become widespread, both at Google itself, which has only just started redesigning its own apps, and among third-party developers who have just received the new design language in their hands.

Security is improved

When it comes to new features, it's much about security, but Android 15 did that too. In Android 16, an overarching security feature called Advanced Security has been added to the phone. If you enable it, the phone ensures that the highest security settings are activated, and you cannot change individual security settings without first turning off advanced security. The features affected are mainly those that already exist, but among the new security features is a security log where you can retrospectively review if you suspect a breach has occurred, enhanced protection from attacks via devices connected through the USB hub, and the device cannot be set to auto-connect to insecure networks.

A new security feature is fraud protection. With the help of AI, the phone recognises typical patterns of behaviour in fraud via phone calls and SMS and warns if it thinks you are about to be subjected to fraud. It also prevents you from installing apps that do not come from the app store during ongoing calls, ensures that screen sharing is turned off at the end of a call, and more. It is unclear whether this feature will work with the phone set to Swedish as the language or if it will only work in English at launch.

Find gathered in one place

Other features worth mentioning are that Find My Devices gets a consolidated and more snappily named place called Find Hub. Here you can see all the devices you have enabled tracking for, as well as family members you have chosen to share your location with. Here you will also have the opportunity to communicate via satellite if you are outside mobile coverage and your mobile supports it.

Android 16 also gets a new type of notification called Live Updates. As the name suggests, it is a notification that updates in real-time so that you can quickly and easily follow, for example, a food delivery in real-time.