Android 16 is currently in the beta testing phase, with a stable rollout planned for June, later this year. The next Android OS update will include a bunch of useful features, one of which is Live Updates. According to a report, Google Maps is the first app to support the Live Updates feature.
Google Maps gets the Live Updates feature with Android 16 Beta 2.1 update
Earlier this month, Google released Android 16 Beta 2.1. That was an incremental update supposed to fix existing bugs and nothing else. To everyone’s surprise, that update also included the Live Updates feature. Folks over at Android Authority first reported it and mentioned that Google Maps now supports the Live Updates feature in Android 16 Beta 2.1.
As you can see in the image below, the Live Updates status bar chip is green. It immediately says that the chip belongs to Google Maps. The status bar chip not only includes the time until the next turn but also displays the estimated time of arrival (ETA).
It’s possible that you might be able to see other turn-by-turn information with the chip. If you tap on the status bar chip, it will turn into a panel enabling you to view Live Updates for a certain task without having to swipe down on the screen.
The feature won’t be restricted to just one app
While Google Maps appears to be the first app to support Live Updates, there could be many others as well. One of the examples of this is food delivery platforms. Whenever you order food, you’re likely to see status bar chips with the progress of your order, as seen in a YouTube video attached below. We also expect ride-sharing apps like Uber and Lyft to support this feature.
For the uninitiated, Live Updates allows checking notifications on the Lock Screen, always-on display, status bar, and of course, the notification panel. Here, we aren’t talking about the usual notifications that you get from apps. Live Updates will inform users of the progress of certain tasks we’ve mentioned above.
