pixels – BIG

Android 13 Beta 1 is now available.

This beta is available for public testing, and since it follows two Developer Previews, it shouldn’t feature notable bugs that wreck your phone (at least no more than the bugs already in Android 12). However, it won’t be perfect, and this is only the first of four planned betas.

If you want to try Android 13 Beta 1 and have a Pixel 4 to Pixel 6 Pro, you head to the Android Beta Program website. When you tap “opt-in,” you’ll get the option to choose Android 12 Beta or Android 13 Beta. Make sure you tap the Android 13 option, or you might be stuck in the Android 12 Beta for a while.

Following that, you’ll receive an over-the-air software update. It can take up to a few hours, so don’t worry if you don’t see it immediately. After this, following Android 13 builds will just hit your device like normal software updates until Android 13 is finally released.

Android 13 Beta 1 features a new photo picker that lets you choose which of your photos an app can access, new app icon themes and Bluetooth LE audio support. Additionally, there are more permission controls for shared media files and more permissions for notifications.

You can check out more of those Developer Preview 2 features available on Beta 1.

I’m finding this Android 13 Beta 1 pretty stale, but we’ll likely see more interesting top-level changes at Google I/O 2022 on May 11th.

If you see a new update on your Pixel today, you probably shouldn’t download it.

It appears Google may have re-issued the Android 12 update to older Pixel phones — so far, everything from the Pixel 3a to the 5 (or 5a if you live in a market where that phone is available) appears to be affected. The Pixel 6 and 6 Pro, however, don’t seem to be. Worse, it looks like Google issued the U.S.-based carrier Verizon’s specific Android 12 updates to non-Verizon Pixel phones.

According to reports from 9to5Google and Android Authority, some users who have updated their Pixels with this new update now have build numbers matching the Verizon Android 12 update. Further, others examined the MD5 checksum (a string of numbers used to uniquely identify a file) and found it matches the Verizon update.

The main difference between the Verizon and non-Verizon variants likely comes down to radio bands. Android Authority notes that Verizon offers mmWave 5G on devices with hardware to support it. The U.S. carrier also uses a CDMA-based network while many other places use GSM. While installing the update may not break anything, it’s also probably better not to risk it.

Besides, the whole update totals over 1.5GB, which can be pretty large (especially if you pay by the gig for your internet).

It’s not clear how widespread the problem is, but some U.K. Pixel owners report receiving the update. Ultimately, if you have a Pixel and you get a prompt for a large Android 12 update, you probably shouldn’t install it.

Source: 9to5Google, Android Authority