Android 16 logo
Android 16 logo
Google Maps has become the first app to support Android 16's new Live Updates. This lets progress-centric notifications appear prominently in the status bar, notifications panel, lock screen, and always-on display.
Android 16 Beta 2.1, released last week, brought partial support for Live Updates. Users running the demo app noticed that notifications were displayed as status bar chips and prominently featured in the notifications panel, as reported by Android Authority.
On devices running Android 16 Beta 2.1 with the latest version of Google Maps, users can now see their estimated time of arrival (ETA) and time to the next turn in a status bar chip. The chip uses Google Maps' navigation icon and green background color.
Tapping the status bar chip brings down the notification as a heads-up panel, which lets users see more information without really fully expanding the notifications panel, the report said.
However, the text in these chips may be cut off if it's too long, especially if multiple apps are displaying Live Updates simultaneously.
I am glad that Android is finally implementing functionality similar to what iPhone has which goes by the name of Dynamic Island. And honestly, Dynamic Island is so much better than this, at least as of now—but it remains to be seen what Google does next to improve it.