Demo App Better Shows How Android 16's Live Notifications Work [Video]

Google announced “Live Notifications” are coming to Android 16, and now a demo app is making it possible to better see how this feature will work.

With the first Android 16 beta release, Google announced that it would be launching Live Notifications with this upcoming OS update. As the company describes, this is a “new class of notifications that help users monitor and quickly access important ongoing activities.” Google specifically called out “rideshare, delivery, and navigation” apps as examples of what might use this functionality. If that sounds familiar, it’s probably because this sounds a whole lot like Live Activities on iOS.

Google hasn’t offered a full look at how this functionality will work – only showing a brief preview – but developer Viktor Mykhaliv created a demo app to show it off, and Android Authority used it to show the full experience.

Essentially, there are two pieces of Live Notifications in Android 16. The first is to show up in the notification tray and show progress, similar to how many apps have “faked” this functionality for a while now. The second piece is what makes it stand out, though, with a “chip” in the status bar. Android already uses this chip for phone calls, screen recordings, and most recently Gemini Live, but the same feature will soon be leveraged by Live Notifications.

Tapping on the status bar chip reveals a larger notification separate from the notification tray, essentially keeping the data in view at all times. These notifications are also pushed to the top of the tray, and show up differently on the always-on display lock screen. Users will be able to turn off Live Notifications on an app-by-app basis as well, the AA post shows.

Notably, this all works pretty much identically to how Samsung has introduced “Live Notifications” in One UI 7 on the Galaxy S25 series. That feature is currently locked down to Google Maps and a handful of other apps on Samsung’s Android 15 skin.

None of this is fully finalized as of yet, but it’s shaping up to be a handy new feature in Android 16. Google’s accelerated release schedule will see Android 16’s final release around May/June, while the beta program is ongoing for Pixel devices.