Updates on Google’s Pixel phones are too slow. Before you get your pitchforks, let us explain what we mean. One of the perks of buying a phone like the Google Pixel 6a or Pixel 6 is getting updates ahead of other OEM devices. However, the installation takes too long. Seamless updates are heralded as the best thing that can happen when it comes to software upgrades, and phones that lack this feature are often mocked for the omission. But we’re glad Samsung and a few others refused to implement it.
What are seamless updates?
Seamless updates were introduced with the original Pixel in 2016. The device has two system partitions that allow a software update to be installed while the phone is on. This means that at the end of the process, the device only has to do a quick reboot that lasts thirty seconds at most, instead of being turned off and unusable for a few minutes. Another advantage of seamless updates is the protection against incomplete installations through a slot system.
When you get a new Pixel, it will boot up in slot A. If a software update is available, it will be installed in slot B. When the update is complete, the phone will reboot and switch to the newly updated slot. If an error occurred during or shortly after installation, the Pixel can be restarted in Slot A, which still has the unupdated software, until it can safely try the update again.
That sounds amazing doesn’t it? Most of the time it is like that. Updates are installed automatically without the user noticing, the phone can restart itself to finish the process when the owner is sleeping, and you’re protected from failed updates. For the majority of users, this is the best way to deploy an over-the-air (OTA) update. These benefits are often mentioned and praised, but there is one major downside that few mention: seamless updates take forever.
Seamless updates have a problem
While the phone doesn’t need to be turned off for very long to complete the update, it still takes ages to complete setup while it’s on. Because the Pixel attempts to write a system upgrade to the correct partition while the rest of the OS is up and running smoothly for you to use, the process takes place at a snail’s pace.
Exactly how long does it take? Dalevon, a friend of Twitter, illustrated the issue last July. The update was only 34MB, tiny by and large. After an hour, the installation was only half complete. That was a simple security patch, full Android upgrades take even longer. Android 13 was a massive update that took over two hours to install on a Pixel 4 and 6a.
Why is this a problem? Many of us love the day a new Android version is released and want to play with it as soon as possible. Do we really want to watch a long movie to while away the time while our phone does the work?
In comparison, Samsung phones and others that don’t use seamless updates get things done faster, but at the cost of longer device inactivity. In June, the Galaxy S22 Ultra received an update that weighed in at a whopping 1.3GB, significantly larger than the 34MB update that took Dalevon’s Pixel 6 over an hour to install. With the S22, this 1.3GB upgrade downloaded, installed and optimized in less than six minutes. That said, there’s no failed update protection here like there’s a Pixel, but we haven’t seen a failed update on a Samsung device in years, so it’s not a huge issue.
Pixel users can skip the wait if they wish. Just connect the phone to a PC and sideload the OTA file via ADB, skip the seamless update process and get things done in a snap. This works well and is great to use when there’s a new Android beta or major update. But why would we use a PC to do something the phone should be able to do?
We’re not suggesting that Google remove seamless updates. It’s a fantastic feature for most people most of the time, and having the phone off for just a few seconds is great. And many would argue that waiting a few hours for an update to install is nothing compared to waiting a few months to get the Android upgrade. But if you want to try the latest Android version as soon as possible, we think seamless updates get in the way.
what we want to see
Seamless updates are great for most people, and most of the time we’re in no rush to install the latest security patch. But for big updates the ideal would be to add an option on the device to skip the wait, maybe a toggle in developer options. That way, at least, people wouldn’t have to wait hours to get that much-needed fix or Android upgrade they’ve been waiting for. We’d argue that this is especially true for the bug fix updates given how important they’ve been for Pixel users over the past year.
We know this is just a pipe dream. Google is unlikely to commit resources to implement something that would benefit so few users, if such a thing is even possible. But we can dream, and unless something like this is implemented, we’ll happily continue enjoying the old-fashioned update process on our Samsung phones while we still can.
#Updates #Pixel #slow
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