Here’s How to Get Live Updates to Show on Google Maps With the Android 16 Beta

While Android 16 is coming sooner than expected, feature-wise, it seems like it will be an incremental update — with a heavy focus, not surprisingly, on Gemini, Google’s AI model. However, one feature that should get people excited is the introduction of Live Updates, which is now showing up for Google Maps in the Android 16 beta 2.1, according to Android Authority.

Live Updates are Google’s answer to Apple’s Live Activities feature, which was introduced in iOS 16 a couple of years back. The feature pulls relevant and timely information from an app, like a delivery service, to track something you’ve bought as it progresses from order to delivery. 

Android 16 is expected to launch in the second quarter of this year, a few months earlier than its typical third-quarter launch. Google’s move is to get features out at an accelerated pace, which is why it plans to drop two SDK releases a year now: one major release in the second quarter and a smaller one in the fourth quarter. Android 16 should arrive around June.

You can test the feature for yourself, given you own a supported Pixel device. 

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Apple’s live activities can be seen via an iPhone’s Dynamic Island, the lockscreen or a connected Apple Watch. Android’s Live Updates will be added as a chip to your notification bar with the latest status update pulled from the app. Given the infancy of the Android feature, we don’t expect it to be nearly as robust as the current iOS offering, but it’s a step in the right direction. 

If you’re running the latest Android 16 beta (2.1) and have the latest version of Google Maps installed, this should be all needed to check out the feature. You can try it out by navigating somewhere using turn-by-turn directions, which will bring up a small chip showing you the time until your next turn or your ETA to your destination. 

I installed the latest beta on my Pixel Tablet to see if I could get the feature to trigger, and once I minimized the mini navigation overlay, the chip appeared. Tapping the chip will bring a pop-up with the current navigation step. 

While Live Updates aren’t anything we haven’t seen before, it is a meaningful new feature for Android that should make your next delivery or Lyft ride easier to keep track of. 

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