Your custom Android clock could soon show on the notification panel
Your Android clock customizations could soon extend beyond your lock screen. Mishaal Rahman from Android Authority found the feature in the code of the latest Android 16 Beta, and while it’s not yet live, he was able to get the feature working long enough for a demonstration.
The first change you’ll notice is that the Quick Settings and Notifications panels have been split. Swiping from the right brings up Quick Settings, while swiping down from the left shows Notifications. There are also several different options for how to swap between one or the other, including tapping the icons at each corner of the screen.
There’s another perk to this, though. It opens up more space in the Notifications panel, and that means your customizations can transfer over. Rahman points out that the appearance could change, however. His activation might not be what the official version looks like.
FIRST LOOK: Hands-on with Android 16’s redesigned Quick Settings!
Further tests demonstrated that the Notifications panel shows the same clock as the lock screen, along with any thematic changes you choose to make. Not everything results in a clear one-to-one transfer; while most of the clocks appear properly, Rahman said the weather clock doesn’t show in full.
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It’s an exciting change and one that furthers the customization options in Android 16. That said, it probably won’t be available in the next update. Since the feature is linked to the separate dual panels — and that feature isn’t ready yet — it probably won’t be included until later. However, Google could easily add it to one of the Android 16 quarterly updates.
One of the main draws for Android users is how much more customizable these phones are compared to other platforms (especially iOS), and updates like this draw in new customers who want more granular control over their devices. And when you consider how many other useful features are coming with Android 16, it looks like it’s poised to take the lead over iOS 18.
Patrick Hearn writes about smart home technology like Amazon Alexa, Google Assistant, smart light bulbs, and more. If it’s a…
October 15 could be the day Android fans have been waiting for
The official release of Android 15 has been delayed way longer than anyone expected, but we can finally see the light at the end of the tunnel. According to a report from Android Headlines, the next version of Android will hit the market on October 15.
This is a marked departure from how Google has handled the launch in the past. Typically, the latest version of Android releases with the latest version of the Pixel, but that wasn’t the case this year with the August release of the Google Pixel 9. In a way, Android 15 is releasing at its usual time; the Pixel was just early.
Organizing your Google Photos library will soon get a lot easier
As reported by Android Authority, the Google Photos app for Android is expected to receive an update with new organization features. These enhancements could make photo management a little bit easier. The new tools will benefit anyone who regularly backs up photos and videos from third-party apps to Google Photos.
The latest report reveals that an APK teardown of Google Photos v6.99 unveiled a new option within the app’s “Show content from other apps” section called “Only show backed-up content.” By choosing this option, you can view images from third-party apps backed up or waiting to be backed up. This gives you better control over what appears in your main photo feed.
RCS messages are about to look a little different on your Android phone
You might soon see a change in how your messages look on your Android phone. Google Messages is rolling out a change to how the type of message is displayed. At present, it says either “Text message” or “RCS message” at the bottom, but the new change will shorten these to either (Text) or (RCS).
9to5Google’s Abner Li reports the change and points out that the phrasing could be reduced to either Text or RCS to streamline the appearance and make it look less technical. That said, only a limited number of people have reported the change so far. Google has a tendency to roll updates out slowly, however, so that’s not surprising.
