Damien Wilde / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Google has unveiled its latest statue to commemorate the release of Android 16.
- The statue features Android’s mascot on a merry-go-round.
- The seats are fashioned to look like Material 3 Expressive UI shapes.
Google has a tradition of commemorating the release of major Android OS updates by unveiling new statues of its Android mascot, “The Bot.” The company released the stable version of Android 16 back in June, and we’ve been waiting ever since to see what The Bot would be up to this year. Google has now shared a look at the latest statue.
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You may remember in 2023, Google revealed a statue with The Bot doing a handstand on a layer of cake. This design was meant to reference Android 14’s codename “Upside Down Cake.” Then, in 2024, the tech giant unveiled a more vanilla statue (pun intended) with The Bot sitting on a bench with an ice cream cone. As you can guess, this is also a reference to Android 15’s dessert-inspired codename, “Vanilla Ice Cream.” So where does the next step in The Bot’s journey take it?
Unlike the last two years, this year’s statue does not reference a codename. Instead, Google opted to make something in reference to Android 16’s Material 3 Expressive theme.
What a fun day! We’re still buzzing from the Android 16 launch, celebrating with a new statue that puts a spin on the Material 3 Expressive design and celebrates the power of AI. Check out this behind-the-scenes video of our statue. You might even say it’s got layers of… pic.twitter.com/GUgJMuMa7A
In a social media post from Google’s Seang Chua, we see The Bot sitting on a small, purple merry-go-round. That merry-go-round has seats that are fashioned to look like Material 3 Expressive shapes. And it looks like the merry-go-round is just big enough to fit a group of three.
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