Controlling the Leak: Journalism or Just Business?
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Two months ago, a Pixel 9 Pro running an internal dogfood build was leaked on TikTok, showing early Android 16 features like the new UI, ambient AOD walls etc. Since it was so early, many (inc. me) doubted it but journalist Mishaal Rahman didn’t comment when people asked him. He knew it is 100% real but chose not to confirm or deny because then "everyone would spread the leak" which would affect his exclusive coverage. Basically it was "all part of the strategy".

Mishaal later said he’d post about most of those features shown in the leak once Beta 3 dropped, but carefully, since they require the "Flag Flipper" app that is present in dogfood builds only.

You don't want to reveal how you enabled these features, ie. Flag Flipper on a dogfood build

In his recent article about Android 16 Big UI Overhaul, he claimed that the new UI features were “hidden in Beta 4”, which in reality they aren’t because these features are only present in internal builds. Many people run Beta builds on their Google Pixel, but you will never see anyone having those new "hidden" UI features except Mishaal Rahman.

Mishaal was also worried about someone revealing a "bunch of internal Google apps," saying Google might investigate and once they figure out "how," they'll close the "loophole," which will make it "much harder to get these builds", thus be lowkey.

If you're wondering why Mishaal is silent on these allegations — it's because he is deleting any messages about these posts in his chats. The chat admins are even banning users for sharing these posts.

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