Google Maps is the first app to support Android 16’s Live Updates feature

One of the key features of the upcoming Android 16 release is Live Updates, a feature that allows progress-centric notifications to be displayed prominently in the status bar, notifications panel, lock screen, and always-on display. When Google first announced the feature in January, it wasn’t ready for developers to test. With the most recent Android beta release, however, the Live Updates feature is finally here, and Google Maps is already ready for it.

Late last week, Google released Android 16 Beta 2.1, an incremental, bug-fixing update on top of Android 16 Beta 2. Typically, these minor updates don’t contain any new features, but to our surprise, Beta 2.1 actually brought the new Live Updates feature, at least partially. When I ran the demo app that I used for our first look at the Live Updates feature, I noticed that the app’s notifications were being shown as status bar chips. They were also displayed prominently in the notifications panel above even priority conversations (but below the media panel), making them hard to miss.

The demo app wasn’t the only one whose notifications were being displayed this way. Several users have told me that the Google Maps app has also started to support Live Updates. I was able to verify this on my own Pixel running Android 16 Beta 2.1 with the latest version of Google Maps.

As you can see in the image shown below, Google Maps can not only show the time until the next turn but also the ETA in its status bar chip. It might also show other turn-by-turn information that I haven’t encountered yet. Keep in mind that Android 16 will cut off the text in status bar chips if it’s too long, so it’s unlikely Maps will show detailed information in the chip. This is more likely to happen if more than one app is displaying a Live Update, as the chip will have to be cut off on many devices with a centered hole-punch cutout.

Google Maps’ status bar chip uses the standard navigation icon and green background color that the app is known for, making it clear to anyone what app it belongs to. Tapping it brings down the notification as a heads-up panel, allowing you to view the notification without pulling down the full panel.

Unfortunately, the notifications from both the demo app and Google Maps were collapsed on the always-on display, which is why I said the feature was only partially available in Android 16 Beta 2.1. When I fully enabled the feature last month, I demonstrated how Live Updates were shown in full as a wireframe on the always-on display, as opposed to other notifications that appeared only as icons. It’s likely this aspect of the feature will go live in the next Android beta, but we don’t know for sure. When it does go live, seeing turn-by-turn navigation info from Google Maps will be easier than ever.

Thanks to JING, A_Button117, and Prasham Parikh for the tip!