Someone just spotted a notifications makeover for Android 16

What you need to know

• Google's recent Android 15 QPR1 Beta holds clues that point toward a major makeover for the system's notifications and quick settings panel.
• Viewing notifications could produce a smaller panel that takes up less of your display while the full settings menu could hold smaller, circular icons.
• The recent Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1.1 patch fixes a rebooting Pixel problem, but we're still waiting on the stable launch, which could happen in October.

Clues in Google's Android code suggest a makeover for its quick settings menu, which could impact the way notifications are displayed in future versions of Android.

A version of this quick settings revamp was discovered by Mishaal Rahman (Android Authority) when perusing a recent Android 15 QPR1 Beta. He noticed a major change in the menu's functionality: it takes two fingers to open fully. Rahman states that the new menu (after swiping down) only takes up "a quarter of your screen." 

However, if you're interested in opening it fully, users will reportedly need to drag two fingers down their display.

The full quick settings menu offers much smaller, circular options for what we already have on Android today: flashlight, airplane mode, Google Home, and more. The code states users can "hold and drag to rearrange tiles." That's not anything new, but what is new is the design. Google may keep the top four Android options as larger, pill-shaped buttons, leaving the rest as circular icons. This design looks similar to what's on newer Motorola phones like the Motorola Razr Plus 2024.

More importantly, there's less information with the (quicker) quick settings menu only dropping partway in this early preview. Google's code teases that the initial swipe down will only show new notifications in a rounded corner area with the time, date, and battery information. This could be a welcome change as the proposed redesign lets users continue to see the app they're in instead of just a menu.

Rahman adds that this redesign could hit users during Android 16's rollout and not anytime soon. The post states that many aspects of this revamp are "unfinished."

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Rahman states that the existence of "Flexi" or Flexiglass in his screenshots indicates Google's codename for its "restructured" System UI. Supposedly, this will allow the company to treat each piece of its UI as its own component called a "scene." Perhaps this will lead to more changes and redesigns down the road.

If true, the idea of Android 16 is (quite literally) a year away. For now, we have the Android 15 QPR1 Beta 1.1 update. The latest beta brought Google's recent Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL to the testing grounds. The minor patch was light as the company was eager to fix a strange rebooting issue that cropped up on IssueTracker.

Elsewhere, Android 15 is seemingly poised to bring a change to its DND, known as "Priority Mode." Early signs in the code suggest Google will let users customize their do-not-disturb experience alongside an option to "stay focused" while on their phones. The QPR beta is expected to be the December feature drop, but in the meantime, we're still waiting for Android 15's stable release in October.