Following the major release of Angular 21 in November, the team is kicking off 2026 with Angular 21.1. Scheduled for the week of January 12th, this minor release packs significant developer experience improvements, focusing heavily on control flow syntax and deeper browser API integration.

🚀 Key Features in Angular 21.1

1. Native Navigation API Integration (Experimental)

Angular is taking a massive step towards modern browser standards. v21.1 introduces experimental support for the Navigation API. This allows the Angular Router to hook directly into the browser's native navigation mechanism, potentially offering smoother transitions and better integration with browser history compared to the traditional History API wrapper.

2. Improved Switch Case Syntax

The built-in control flow syntax gets a quality-of-life update. You can now match multiple cases in a single line, reducing template boilerplate:

@switch (status) {
  @case ('active', 'pending') {
    
  }
  @default {
    Inactive
  }
}

3. Spread Syntax in Templates

Angular templates are becoming more JavaScript-like. v21.1 adds support for spread syntax in both array and object literals within templates, making it easier to pass data configurations to components without creating dedicated controller methods.

4. Signal Forms: The [formField] Directive

The transition to Signals continues. The new [formField] directive provides a reactive way to bind form controls, offering better type safety and performance than the legacy ngModel or formControlName approaches.

📅 Release Schedule

Based on Angular's standard cadence:

• v21.1 Release: Week of January 12, 2026
• v22.0 Major Release: Expected May 2026