Google has started rolling out the first developer preview of Android 16. The tech giant is doing this to roll out the new features to devices faster.

Google has already started rolling out the Android 16 developer preview. This changes the usual rollout schedule; Normally the developer beta doesn’t appear until the second quarter, and the stable Android version doesn’t appear until after July. Android 15 was launched just last month.

Combat fragmentation

With this step, Google may want to reduce fragmentation so that the same Android version always runs on different devices, TechCrunch knows. This would make it possible to make new Android functions available to more users more quickly.

As for features, Android 16’s first developer preview includes a built-in photo picker for apps. This allows apps to prompt users to access selected photos from both local storage and the cloud.

What is important, however, is that the first major version of Android 16 is stable. Only then can developers build on top of it without fear of their apps being incompatible or broken.