today Google released Android 16 beta 4 that I have here on my Pixel 9 Pro XL The update is not massive but I spotted a lot of hidden features and the tweaks that are worth mentioning So without further ado let's jump in Starting with the build number here I have PP22.250325.007 And I will do a side-by-side comparison with beta 3.2 two to show you the differences Starting with the lock screen you will notice here the always on display colors now match your device colors instead of always using the white color like before So as an example I'm using the exact same wallpaper with the same exact color palette And when I go to the always on display here I can see a green color while on beta 3 it's always in white color And here's another example with a different wallpaper As you see the color palette is now pink which matches my always on display Now let's talk about the new changes under the home screen And the first one when you access the home screen menu you will see one more option added called app list Tapping on it will simply take you to the app list as you see here So there is nothing major So maybe Google is preparing something new but is not yet finalized But this is how it looks Anyways moving to the recent apps screen you will find a couple of new changes in the app menu First the split screen icon got updated and the screenshot and select buttons are now part of the list which didn't exist before but they work exactly the same No difference On a side note with Android 16 beta 4 Google removed the users widget from the list And as you see here I no longer see it So that's it when it comes to the home screen And now let's talk about the notification shade and the quick settings The first change when you tap and hold on the notification on both you will find that we got some tweaks The first one is the rename of the turn off notifications button to turn off only And we got one new button called dismiss And when you tap on turn off on both you will see that the toggles are now getting a new design They they are thicker and they have a tick sign at the end Moving to the media controls The first thing you will notice is the darker album art which will make the text more visible And we got even more in the media output switcher Now the volume bars are thicker with a dot at the end And we have a header for the rest of devices Plus when you adjust the volume now you get a haptic feedback in this card which wasn't the case before Before jumping to the next chapter let me remind you about the wallpapers by in-depth thick reviews app that you will find its Google Play Store download link in the description So if you like any of the wallpapers you see in this video or any of my previous videos you will find them over here I also added these 12 new wallpapers to celebrate Android 16 beta 4 And now let's get back to the new features Now it's time to talk about the new changes under settings And the first one is the less contrast between the settings items and the background As you see here when you look at the gaps you can notice the difference The second change is under network and the internet and then internet When you tap on the gear icon next to your mobile network and scroll all the way down you will see that the allow 2G toggle is now called 2G network protection So instead of allowing your phone to connect to the 2G this toggle will now protect your phone from connecting to the 2G network Moving to the apps menu when you go to the cloud media app you'll notice that the page is now appearing in full screen view which looks much better Moving to sound and vibration the first thing you will notice is the reappearance of the volume sliders range that didn't exist before And when you go to vibration and haptics you will see much thicker volume bars in beta 4 This new change is not exclusive to the vibration and haptics page but you will find it everywhere under settings Under display and touch when you tap on the brightness level you will see a redesigned slider with a black bar around it to match the one you get in the quick settings So instead of having two different designs now everything is refined Moving to the battery for some reason after installing beta 4 I no longer see the battery health page of Android 16 on my Pixel 9 Pro XL and I'm back again to the same charging optimization page of Android 15 So hopefully it's a bug and Google will push the feature back again One more feature got removed with this build is under the face and fingerprint unlock When you go to fingerprint unlock I don't see the screen off fingerprint unlock option like before And the last new change under settings is under security and the privacy and then system and updates You will notice here that I'm running May 1st 2025 Google Play system update instead of April 1st like before Now it's time to talk about the bugs and I will start with the bug fixes As per the release notes we got a fix for an issue that caused the radar map to disappear in the Pixel Weather app Fixed an issue that impacted haptic performance and delayed feedback Fixed an issue that caused excessive power drain on some devices Fixed an issue that caused a system restart when a call was answered in some situations And then fixed for an issue that caused restart when a screen magnification is enabled Fixed an issue where screen saver did not start And finally fixed an issue where phone restarted when ranging API used There is also another fix which is not mentioned in the release notes When you take a look here when I open the folder you will see that the animation is delayed But now this problem is gone In contrast there are some bugs that are yet to be fixed The first one when you try to edit your home screen clock you will get this page in dark theme even though the phone is in light theme Also when you try to edit your quick settings the edit button is grayed out And when you tap on it and scroll all the way down you will see this page in high contrast view even though the feature is not activated And when you play a game in portrait view and try to access the game dashboard you will get an overlap between the game dashboard and the status bar Now let's talk about the performance and battery When it comes to the numbers there is nothing major Here are my Geekbench 6 scores I got 4514 for the multi-core and 1881 for the single core which is slightly worse than the numbers I got previously But in real life there's no major difference The only thing that improved in my opinion is the scrolling quality It feels more refined and less sluggish than before But other than this it feels exactly the same When it comes to the battery I didn't have enough time to test it but let me show you what I've got Anyways I've been using the phone for 1 hour and 45 minutes and I lost 23% on Wi-Fi I didn't do anything major As you see here all the apps are used less than 1 minute but I was navigating the OS to check the new features So maybe in my future videos I will keep you updated about the battery life By this I covered all the new changes in Android 16 beta 4 So please let me know in the comments if I missed anything But for now thanks so much for watching and see you in the next
