Android 16 Live Updates: Progress Notifications

Android 16 borrowed one of the iPhone's most useful ideas, Live Activities, and built its own version that arguably looks better doing it. Live Updates are rich, ongoing notifications that track real-time events: your food delivery, a rideshare, an active navigation route. They surface as a chip in the status bar, sit at the top of the notification drawer, and show on the lock screen with a segmented progress bar and milestone icons. The best part is there is nothing to switch on; they just appear when an app supports them.

Key takeaways

• Live Updates are Material You-styled ongoing notifications that track start-to-end activities.
• The new ProgressStyle API adds segmented progress bars and milestone icons.
• Promoted notifications appear as a status-bar chip, at the top of the drawer, and on the lock screen.
• Designed for navigation, calls, rideshare, and delivery tracking, not promos or background alerts.
• No setup required as a user; they show up when an installed app adds support.

What Live Updates are

Android 16 introduces progress-centric notifications so you can follow a user-initiated journey from start to finish without reopening the app. Google's name for the richer, Material You-styled version is Live Updates, and they are the platform's answer to live activities on other systems. The point is glanceability: a quick look at your screen tells you the delivery is two stops away or the ride is arriving.

How they look

The visual upgrade comes from ProgressStyle, a new notification style that draws segmented progress bars and milestone icons to mark stages of a journey. A delivery, for example, can show distinct segments for "preparing," "on the way," and "arriving," with an icon at each milestone.

Promoted Live Updates also get prime placement. They appear:

• As a chip in the status bar, visible even when the drawer is closed.
• At the top of the notification drawer, above ordinary notifications.
• On the lock screen, so you can check progress without unlocking.

If you have used both platforms, the family resemblance to iPhone's Live Activities and Dynamic Island is obvious. Here is how the two compare:

Aspect	Android 16 Live Updates	iPhone Live Activities
Status-bar presence	Compact chip	Dynamic Island (on Pro models)
Visual system	Material You + ProgressStyle	iOS widgets / ActivityKit
Lock-screen display	Yes, with progress bar	Yes, with progress bar
User setup needed	None	None
Best-fit use cases	Delivery, rides, navigation, calls	Delivery, rides, sports, timers

The practical takeaway: the experiences are nearly interchangeable from a user's seat. The difference is mostly under the hood and in how each platform surfaces the chip.

Where you will see them

The natural fit is any app that tracks something happening right now:

• Active navigation with turn-by-turn directions.
• Ongoing phone calls.
• Rideshare tracking as your driver approaches.
• Food delivery tracking from kitchen to doorstep.

As more apps adopt the new style, expect rides, deliveries, and navigation to feel much more like the live, at-a-glance experiences you may know from other platforms.

A note for developers

If you build apps, Live Updates use Notification.ProgressStyle to denote states and milestones with points and segments. Promoted notifications require the non-runtime POST_PROMOTED_NOTIFICATIONS permission in the manifest, and the notification must use a supported style such as Standard, BigText, Call, Progress, or Metric. Google's developer documentation walks through the implementation for both Views and Jetpack Compose.

How to manage Live Updates

You do not turn Live Updates on, but you can rein them in. Each one is still a notification, so the standard Android controls apply:

• Dismiss or snooze a Live Update by swiping it like any other notification once the activity ends.
• Silence an app that overuses them via long-press on the notification, then Turn off notifications or set the channel to Silent.
• Lock-screen privacy: if you do not want delivery or ride details visible while locked, change Settings > Notifications > Notifications on lock screen to hide sensitive content.
• If a Live Update lingers after the activity finishes, that is an app bug, not a system setting; force-stop or update the app.

For more on what Android 16 brought, see our coverage of the Android June 2026 feature drop and the Android 16 notification cooldown feature.

Frequently asked questions

Do I need to enable Live Updates?

No special setting is required as a user. Live Updates appear automatically when an app you use implements them for an in-progress activity. Standard notification controls still let you manage an app's alerts.

Which apps support Live Updates?

Support depends on individual apps updating to the new style. Delivery, rideshare, navigation, and calling apps are the natural early adopters.

Are Live Updates the same as iPhone Live Activities?

They serve the same purpose, real-time glanceable tracking, and are Google's equivalent. The implementation is Android's own, built on the ProgressStyle notification API.

Will Live Updates drain my battery?

They are designed for active, time-bound events, so the activity is already happening. The notification itself is lightweight; the bigger factor is the app's own background work for tracking.

The bottom line

Live Updates make Android 16 feel more alive when something is actually happening. A delivery, a ride, or a route now lives as a clear chip and progress bar instead of a static notification you have to tap into. As apps adopt the ProgressStyle API, the everyday experiences of tracking food, rides, and navigation get noticeably better, no setup required on your part.