How is everyone liking the Android 9 dev preview so far?

[N4Newbie]

In all seriousness, neither person invented the shapes or colors. Like I said, it's silly.

I agree it is silly, but Apple has made a good business out of patenting silly things.

Heck, which manufacturer was it that recently (last year or so) had to pay big bucks because they dared to use rounded corners on their device in "violation" of an Apple patent?

 

[Rukbat]

I agree it is silly, but Apple has made a good business out of patenting silly things.

I remember the suit (by Apple, of course) over Microsoft stealing the "look&feel" of a windowed OS - the one Apple had stolen from Xerox PARC.

I've tried out the reviews. Noting that matters. I can wait until the phone updates. (If this is the direction "updates" are heading - look, feel and virus protection, I can stay with KitKat if they just kept the protection fixes coming. Or "has everything that can be invented already been invented" ... again?)

 

[FAHMI BASSEM]

Hate the UI changes, feel like it's very similar to IOS which I hate how it looks

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Interesting, I'm not getting an iOS vibe. To me iOS has always been about clutter, neon colors and frosted elements. Not seeing that anywhere in P. What looks similar to you?

 

[ChuckG73]

I cannot unlock the bootloader on my PIxel 2 XL to downgrade back to Oreo. I have done two factory resets and tried fastboot. At first after activting "developer options" the unlock bootloader option was greyed out, after the factory reset it allows me to select the unlock bootloader option and asks me for my pin. I enter my pin and nothing happens, the bootloader remaines locked. I have opened a ticket with Google and sent them a bug report. My Pixel 2 XL was purchased from Google so its not the VZW issue of locked bootloader.

Any help would be greatly appreciated.

 

[ChuckG73]

Solved - sideloaded OTA.zip for April Oreo and am now back on oreo and all is good.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

Solved - sideloaded OTA.zip for April Oreo and am now back on oreo and all is good.

I was wondering if that would work or not; had a friend who wants to revert as well.

 

[ChuckG73]

I was wondering if that would work or not; had a friend who wants to revert as well.

Here is a link with the file and directions:

https://developers.google.com/android/ota

 

[nyc_rock]

Here is a link with the file and directions:

https://developers.google.com/android/ota

Can you just opt out of the beta program? You will get a new update back to 8.1.

 

[ChuckG73]

Can you just opt out of the beta program? You will get a new update back to 8.1.

Yes you can now but could not before the 2nd beta. When you downgrade please know it wipes your device

 

[N4Newbie]

Yes you can now but could not before the 2nd beta. When you downgrade please know it wipes your device

Exactly.

Sure, you can drop out, but doing so can be a real pain. And, no, you will not be able to simply restore your home screens, etc, from backup because the backup will be one version ahead of the OS you are trying to restore to. What actually happens is you get a "no backups found" error.

 

[rickkel]

I made the mistake of downloading the P beta two days ago on my Pixel 2. It didn't make my phone unusable, but there is enough irritating things to make me wish I didn't:

1. I use Textra for texting. The app works okay, but if I try and delete a text, it crashes and closes. There is more than one way to delete a text in Textra and I've tried them all, no love. Not a big deal, but I like a clean text inbox. UPDATE: Textra just released an update to their app that fixed this issue!

2. I use the BlackBerry's Hub Suite for email and calendar. When I installed the P beta, it "broke" the connection of my accounts on both email and calendar initially; I had to go into settings and add the accounts back, not a big deal, but weird nevertheless. Calendar doesn't seem to have any issues so far, but the email Hub crashes every few minutes. Oddly, if I click on a link within an email that normally would open Chrome, the app crashes and the link doesn't open. Not sure what that is all about.

3. So far two apps give a pop-up message that there are "problems with the app native libraries" when opened. One app continues on to work, one doesn't:

FordPass app for my car - message comes up, but it works. Sent message to developer.

SwannLink app for home security cameras does not work. I sent a message to the developer and they said it must be because I have a cheap Android phone. I told him I had a Pixel 2 and he acted like he never heard of it.

So far these are the only problems. Some good stuff I've noticed:

I enabled the new gesture-based navigation and it was a flash back to the past when I used to use BlackBerry 10 devices. The gestures are nearly identical, but humorously worked a whole lot better and were more intuitive on the BlackBerry.

The battery life has improved markedly. It's only been a couple of days, but under my normal usage, the battery % just creeps downward lazily. I've been disconnected for over five hours and the battery is at 91%.

I'm hoping that a new update is released soon that may fix these issues. I don't relish having to reset my phone to return to Oreo.

 

[Itsa_Me_Mario]

I made the mistake of downloading the P beta two days ago on my Pixel 2. It didn't make my phone unusable, but there is enough irritating things to make we wish I didn't:

1. I use Textra for texting. The app works okay, but if I try and delete a text, it crashes and closes. There is more than one way to delete a text in Textra and I've tried them all, no love. Not a big deal, but I like a clean text inbox.

2. I use the BlackBerry's Hub Suite for email and calendar. When I installed the P beta, it "broke" the connection of my accounts on both email and calendar initially; I had to go into settings and add the accounts back, not a big deal, but weird nevertheless. Calendar doesn't seem to have any issues so far, but the email Hub crashes every few minutes. Oddly, if I click on a link within an email that normally would open Chrome, the app crashes and the link doesn't open. Not sure what that is all about.

3. So far two apps give a pop-up message that there are "problems with the app native libraries" when opened. One app continues on to work, one doesn't:

FordPass app for my car - message comes up, but it works. Sent message to developer.

SwannLink app for home security cameras does not work. I sent a message to the developer and they said it must be because I have a cheap Android phone. I told him I had a Pixel 2 and he acted like he never heard of it.

So far these are the only problems. Some good stuff I've noticed:

I enabled the new gesture-based navigation and it was a flash back to the past when I used to use BlackBerry 10 devices. The gestures are nearly identical, but humorously worked a whole lot better and were more intuitive on the BlackBerry.

The battery life has improved markedly. It's only been a couple of days, but under my normal usage, the battery % just creeps downward lazily. I've been disconnected for over five hours and the battery is at 91%.

I'm hoping that a new update is released soon that may fix these issues. I don't relish having to reset my phone to return to Oreo.

Those issues would all have to be fixed by their respective developers, not with another update. The next update is about 7 weeks from now.

 

[rickkel]

Yep, I was aware that the app developers need to do their fair share. And to that end: Textra already updated their app to Android P and it works like a charm again. One down....

 

[rickkel]

...and the developers at Swann just sent me a beta app and that works now. Now if BlackBerry could just get off their rears...