The Android 14 beta is the buggiest beta I’ve ever installed on my Pixels

Ever since I flashed Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich on my HTC Want Z, I’ve been interested by making an attempt the most recent and — supposedly — best model of Android as quickly as potential. When Google began publicly testing official Android developer previews and betas, I rapidly signed up and it’s turn out to be a yearly custom for me. New developer preview? On my secondary cellphone! Out of developer preview and into beta? On my major cellphone! That’s how I ended up with the Android 14 beta on my Pixel 7 Professional and all of the bugs made me remorse it ever since.

Earlier than I stick with it, I do know we’re speaking a few beta and beta software program is bug-ridden by definition — testing is essential to get to the steady launch. I additionally know that bugs are hit-and-miss. I don’t recall seeing any notable subject with any earlier beta I’ve flashed on my Pixel telephones within the final 5 years at the least. That’s extraordinarily fortunate, however betas are imagined to be considerably extra steady than early developer previews. I suppose all of my karma ran out, although, and I received saddled with a large number of annoyances and bugs from day one with the Android 14 beta.

So contemplate this a public service announcement, in case you’re pondering of becoming a member of the beta. If any of the problems under are dealbreakers for you, you would possibly wish to keep away.

My greatest subject with the Android 14 beta is the slicing audio playback bug. It’s so frequent that I can’t hearken to music or podcasts anymore as a result of your complete expertise is past irritating. When the show is off, audio might proceed enjoying for a couple of minutes usually then it begins getting uneven each second or couple of seconds, at a random rhythm. Even when I may get used to it, the unpredictability of it’s painful.

This occurs with each the loudspeaker and with Bluetooth earbuds, with Now Enjoying enabled or disabled (for some individuals, disabling Now Enjoying fixes it, however not for me), and with Spotify and PocketCasts and YouTube or some other audio (even WhatsApp voice notes). Generally it begins the second I begin listening to one thing, typically it provides me a couple of minutes of respite then it will get triggered. The one approach to keep away from it? Maintain the show on.

The video above reveals it in motion. I uploaded a barely longer model to Google Drive in case you like torturing your ears for practically two minutes in 4K. Once I flip off the show, music playback will get unbearably uneven, then resumes usually once I unlock the cellphone. The start of the video additionally reveals a random bug the place playback randomly skips a second once I unlock the cellphone; I’d say that occurs one out of 3 times.

The newest Android 14 beta 2.1, which is meant to repair some audio-related bugs, hasn’t fastened any of this. I’d say each points appear to happen extra hardly ever since I up to date, however they do nonetheless happen.

One other downside I’m going through is with charging my Pixel 7 Professional. Day by day, I get up to a notification saying there was a problem with the charging accent (it’s a documented bug) though my cellphone is totally charged. I’m utilizing the identical charger and cable as earlier than, however the notification is conserving me on edge, questioning if it’s only a mistaken discover or if there’s actually one thing off with my Pixel’s charging.

Within the six months I’ve had the Pixel 7 Professional, I don’t recollect it fully freezing, ever. I’ve been blessed with a really steady expertise. However within the final couple of weeks, this has occurred at the least 4 instances. That is the dangerous freezing too; the place you may’t even drive a reboot by long-pressing the ability button for ten seconds. Nothing works and also you simply have to attend for it to crash and reboot by itself. Beta 2.1 was launched yesterday and it’s supposed to scale back these, so I suppose we’ll see.

Different points I’ve observed are basic digital camera slowness, particularly when zooming or recording video. Now Enjoying wasn’t working, however the newest beta 2.1 appears to have fastened it for now. The loudspeaker was additionally popping randomly, which is a enjoyable expertise on high of the uneven audio playback. Once more, that is supposedly fastened in beta 2.1 and I haven’t observed it since yesterday.

So sure, Google is clearly engaged on ironing out all of the kinks earlier than Android 14 releases attain platform stability and turn out to be accessible to everybody. I hope the audio playback downside will probably be fastened as quickly as potential, although, and never in August. In any other case, I’ll should reset my cellphone and return to the steady model of Android 13.

Within the meantime, in case you’re teetering on the sting and pondering of testing the beta, I’d advocate you keep away. Except you want residing dangerously.