The Android 16 launch date is approaching surprisingly quickly, and it won’t be long before the first beta version of the software is available for us all to enjoy. While there’s still a lot we don’t know about Android 16 and the changes it will incorporate, it looks like we could see design changes to both the back button and the volume slider.
Yes, the volume slider is redesigned again. Even though Android 15 has already changed the appearance of different volume levels on your phone, Mishaal Rahman spotted More changes in the Android 16 developer preview that could come to the final update. Notably, it removes the thick pill-shaped sliders currently used in Android 15.
Instead, Rahman’s screenshots show volume sliders that are thinner, squarer around the edges, and have a solid grip line at the end, which looks much better than the sausage-shaped sliders currently have. used. This change will affect the horizontal volume context menu and the quick access slider that appears when you use the physical volume keys.
Android 16 may also see predictive feedback feature become even more useful. The feature is supposed to understand why you’re trying to use the back gesture, showing you a preview of the page you’ll end up on. This way you won’t end up in the wrong place, like on the home screen, because the back button closes the app instead of returning to the previous screen.
The problem is that at the moment this feature does not work if you use the traditional three-button menu back button – only the gesture. It looks like that could change with Android 16, with Rahman noting that the Android 16 developer preview lets you enable button-based predictive feedback with “some tinkering.”
Rahman also claims that Google will add another gesture to the three-button navigation in Android 16 – allowing you to invoke Google Assistant or any other alternative you have set up by default. This is already an optional feature for gesture navigation, and that means three-button fans could get the same option in the next version of Android.
At the moment, it is unclear whether these features will still be present in the final version of Android 16 or even in the first beta. Not only may things change from the Android 16 developer preview, but Google may prefer to keep these features hidden and out of sight for regular users. So we’ll just have to wait and see what happens when Android 16 actually arrives.
Currently, the Android 16 beta is expected to launch in the coming weeks, while the final public version is expected to be released in May or June.
