Android 16 could be borrowing a key notification trick from the iPhone

Google Pixel 9 in green Wintergreen color showing AI features on screen

Android 15 is ready for the Pixel phones – and it's Android 16 next (Image credit: Philip Berne / Future)

Work on Android in beta form continues
Android 16 could feature a new notifications trick
For now it's called Rich Ongoing Notifications

With Android 15 now rolling out to Pixel phones, we can start turning our attention to what's coming with Android 16 – and some digging into the latest beta code for the operating system has revealed a Dynamic Island-style notification system.

This comes from Mishaal Rahman over at Android Authority, and the feature is called Rich Ongoing Notifications. That gives you some idea of what's involved: persistent notifications that show up in the status bar at the top of the screen.

On newer iPhone models, there's a Dynamic Island notification bar that expands to show information such as sports scores, media that's being played, or an arrival time for a cab pickup. It appears Rich Ongoing Notifications will offer something similar.

Evidence of the tweak to notifications has been found in the Android 15 QPR1 Beta 3 release, though as usual with betas, there's no guarantee that the feature will make it into a final release or be released in its current form.

Phone chips

How Rich Ongoing Notifications could look (Image credit: Mishaal Rahman / Android Authority)

Here's how it works: apps will be able to put a notification alert or 'chip' in the status bar, with custom text and a custom background color. That chip could then show live information – about a flight arrival time, for example.

For now, the Rich Ongoing Notifications feature hasn't been enabled, though Rahman was able to get it working and create a few mockups showing how the chips would look in action (you can see one of them embedded above).

While this definitely has Dynamic Island vibes about it, the Android Authority report does not that these chips have been around since Android 12, though they've been limited to call handling up to this point.

Expanding the feature to apps and notifications of any kind would mean more flexibility for both developers and users when it comes to getting important information on screen. It's something to keep an eye on during 2025, ahead of the Android 16 launch.

Dave is a freelance tech journalist who has been writing about gadgets, apps and the web for more than two decades. Based out of Stockport, England, on TechRadar you'll find him covering news, features and reviews, particularly for phones, tablets and wearables. Working to ensure our breaking news coverage is the best in the business over weekends, David also has bylines at Gizmodo, T3, PopSci and a few other places besides, as well as being many years editing the likes of PC Explorer and The Hardware Handbook.