I’m out here at Mobile World Congress, and I got the chance to sit down with Sameer Samat — the President of the Android Ecosystem at Google — to ask the exact questions you guys (and I) actually care about. We started with a fun one: the “secret” Android mini collectibles and pins Google keeps dropping behind the scenes at big launches. I’ve been collecting these since I was like 14, so getting an Android x McLaren bot and a full pin set was genuinely unreal. But the big conversation was Android’s future. Sameer was super clear: sideloading isn’t going away — it’s a fundamental part of Android — but Google is trying to make it safer with different flows for power users, developers, and hobbyists, plus registration if you’re distributing to huge audiences. We also talked about what Android is focusing on heading into 2026: quality, bug fixes, performance, battery life, and better device-to-device interoperability (including Quick Share working with AirDrop). On the AI side, we got into Circle to Search improvements like “Find the look,” and the upcoming Gemini automation that can navigate apps to complete tasks. We wrapped on Android’s identity (openness first), OEM tensions and standardization for developers, plus where Android could be by 2031: a tighter ecosystem across phones, watches, TV, Auto, glasses, and even laptops.