Hi, (soon to be ex) Pixel 4a user here. Regardless of why this update has happened, the way Google have went about this update is sketchy at best, and deceitful at worst. To be plain: this phone has been EOL for 1½ years now. This update has appeared out of the blue and specifically decimates the battery + charging capabilities.
My most charitable view is that Google have found a major fault with the Pixel 4a battery and want to mitigate a repeat of the Galaxy Note 7 without saying it outright and causing a panic.
My least charitable view (and immediate reaction) is that they're purposely ruining a viable budget phone to make more sales.
Either of these are terrible. At no point has Google came out and stated -why- they're pushing this update in the first place. And as someone who hasn't updated I'd really like to know if my phone presents an immediate threat (and I'm sure Governments and airlines would also like to know) before I remotely consider an update that'll practically destroy my device.
On top of this, within a day of being notified about this update, Google drastically raised the price of new Pixels on their store. Again if I'm charitable it could just be automatic global market price updates, but that goes out the window when Google must have prepared this update, FAQs, support plans, etc, then released it just before said price updates. The $100 discount recourse doesn't go far when the 8a jumped from £379 to £499. It's hard not to feel suspicious about it.
While I'm here, I did briefly write about my experiences with the 4a, though I'm far from a competent tech writer: https://callmeo.live/blog/ode-to-the-pixel-4a/
Unless your Pixel 4a is from Verizon (locked), keep it.
Unlock the bootloader, then install LineageOS, MindTheGapps, and Magisk.
Once you have Magisk stabilized, install the Advanced Charging Controller, and configure it to halt charging at 80%.
That should solve your problems, and turn the updates back on. I don't think there is a way to make Google Pay work in this configuration, which is a drawback.
I can put all the URLs here if you ask.
Edit:
[I did not remember that Lineage hosts gapps images]
https://wiki.lineageos.org/gapps/
[IIRC, the APK is renamed to a ZIP and flashed with recovery, then name it back and install the app]
>Once you have Magisk stabilized, install the Advanced Charging Controller, and configure it to halt charging at 80%.
That will reduce future wear, but won't suddenly make the battery better. If anything it'll make the battery even worse, at least in the short term.
Installing Lineage by itself will drastically reduce power consumption on many devices, as vendor bloat is wiped. A net gain is possible, even with ACC 80% in place.
With a Pixel, there is less bloat, so it is less of a factor with this particular device. However, you don't get the full suite of Chrome/Maps/Gmail/Drive/Photos/etc. installed by default, and what you have not installed will not drain your battery.
In any case, one would hope that Google's safeguards are equaled by ACC.
My 4a went from 3 day battery life to less than a day, immediately after the "update".
This seems surprisingly high to me, unless you're constantly on extreme power saving mode. I liked the 4a and still have it in a drawer, but replaced it partly because I couldn't order a new screen and the battery life was frustratingly terrible after a while
It doesnt have to be on powersaving- just by leaving wifi and bluetooth off I would regularly get 3 days on a charge.
Data is cheap where I live, but also I dont use my phone to stream music/video.
That defeats the whole point of a Pixel, the camera app.
A URL can be found below to load it back into your custom ROM, and supposedly the same camera can be found in the Play store.
Thanks for the info! My pixel has already applied the update unfortunately - any ideas if switching to lineageos is still helpful in that case?
They’re not offering the free battery replacement in Aus otherwise I’d do that - hard to be sure that getting a new battery in a local repair shop wouldn’t be similarly affected by the new limits (presumably some sort of blacklist on serial numbers?).
Installing Lineage should help battery life. @marcan[1] dissected the new update and puts the blames an overlay in the new kernel that changed the charge voltage.
1. https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/113914172433692339
What the hey, let's do it...
Random Google engineer on personal machine trashes Pixel 4a batteries in GPL violation
"So... this was built by a random engineer on their personal machine."
How did this random engineer command that all previous firmware images be taken offline?
Alternate ROMs look much safer right now.
Should this be submitted to HN separately?
The new battery behavior is probably just some POSIX userspace process running under Linux, or perhaps some kernel tweak.
The whole of userspace will be replaced when LineageOS reformats all of the partitions.
It is possible that the new battery behavior has been injected into some deeper part of the hardware, but LineageOS is unlikely to make that worse.
>>> Unlock the bootloader, then install LineageOS, MindTheGapps, and Magisk.
Unless you have researched this and are comfortable doing these things, this is not something that's easy to do. I bricked my OnePlus Nord100 not once, but TWICE trying to install Ubuntu Touch.
It happened because the Nord100 shipped with a more current Android version (11.xx) and Ubuntu can only be installed over two very specific versions (10.xx) on the Nord. I bricked it once thinking it could be installed over the 11 version. Then I had to figure out how to reflash the phone back to the 10 version, then run the UBports installer.
I was lucky because I bought the Nord100 for like $50 on ebay so it wasn't a big deal if I wasn't able to unbrick the phone, but if you do this to a more expensive phone, the consequences are a lot more expensive.
I love Lineage OS and have it running on a Pixel 4XL, but my experience flashing and re-flashing the phone several times, and all the work I went into just to get UT running on that phone, really dampened my enthusiasm to ever do this again.
I've loaded Cyanogenmod on the HTC Incredible 1 & 2, and the BN Nook color.
I've loaded Lineage on the Nexus 6, Oneplus 3a & 5 & Nord N200, the original Pixel, and the Pixel 3a XL.
Pixels are the most forgiving, and the hardest to brick. They are also the best for VoLTE.
I also have an N100, which is not supported by Lineage.
Do I misunderstand what Ubuntu Touch is? I thought it was its own thing whose only relation to Android was the BSP, not some type of layer on top of Android. If so then it seems irrelevant and unfair to bring up w/r/t the well-tested Android-to-different-Android path.
Unless your phone has full mainline kernel support (pinephone, librem 5, pocophone f1 etc...), All these Linux on phone projects mostly use Android system services (init, surfaceflinger, rild etc..) to talk to the device hardware, without bringing up the Android UI.
They do this so that they don't have to reverse engineer and write the hardware drivers from scratch and simply use Android's user space drivers for them.
I haven't been involved in that domain for a while, but it basically meant reusing the contents of your device's /system and /vendor partitions and simply installing the Linux OS into /data.
> Once you have Magisk stabilized, install the Advanced Charging Controller, and configure it to halt charging at 80%.
If we install LineageOS, should we worry about Google's firmware update? Then why bother with all these steps?
I think the comment is responding to the fears of..
"My most charitable view is that Google have found a major fault with the Pixel 4a battery and want to mitigate a repeat of the Galaxy Note 7 without saying it outright and causing a panic."
These lithium batteries usually last longer when you don't fully discharge them and fully charge them regularly. 20-80%. No idea why manufacturers don't just call that range as 0-100%.
Why go all through that pain when graphene OS gives you a straightforward install?
Because the 4a is on extended support, is not recommended, and cessation can happen any time now?
Is that different on lineageOS or just not as clearly stated?
LineageOS devices are subject to desupport at any time, when the maintainer(s) makes the decision to retire it (and no volunteers appear to replace the maintainer).
With the sunset of 3g, many devices that were not capable of 4g were retired.
That being said, Lineage still does support several Pixels that Graphene has desupported. In fact, I am typing this on a Pixel 3a XL which is in this category.
The original Pixel, Pixel 2 and 2XL are still supported by LineageOS:
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/#google
Graphene has explicitly removed everything prior to the Pixel 4, including:
Pixel 3a XL (bonito), Pixel 3a (sargo), Pixel 3 XL (crosshatch), Pixel 3 (blueline), Pixel 2 XL (taimen), Pixel 2 (walleye), Pixel XL (marlin), Pixel (sailfish).
Edit: This extended support does come at some risk. The chipsets used in Android can sometimes have showstopper bugs. Sometimes, these cannot be patched, although maintainers will go to great lengths to find solutions. The "firmware age" is reflected in the "vendor security patch" date in Lineage - the older, the more dangerous.
Graphene largely does not allow this.
And then you can't access bank or government apps anymore... I used to root my phone, it's not worth it anymore
The Wells Fargo app runs on my Oneplus 5/Lineage. It is not rooted (with Magisk), but root adb is offered in developer settings.
Cisco Duo also runs on this device.
This will be a decision for the app vendor, but I'd rather get monthly updates than maintain a locked bootloader.
Uber has done some strange things.
> I can put all the URLs here if you ask.
I'm not who you replied to but can you please do? I've been wanting to make a LineageOS device for a while but was being cheap (and it wasn't high enough priority). But maybe now there will be a lot of cheap Pixel 4a on eBay in the near future and I'll go for it.
Just be careful that you do not get anything sold by Verizon, as these unfortunates do not allow bootloader unlocking.
I also remember some rumor that all Pixels must access WiFi before they will allow bootloader unlocking in the developer options.
"Either of these are terrible. At no point has Google came out and stated -why- they're pushing this update in the first place."
As I can still remember the days of software before "updates", I am still baffled by the always unsolicited "advice" amounting to "always update" without even considering what's in an "update". This "advice" is everywhere. Software quality control is at all-time lows I guess. Then came "automatic updates", decreasing the chance of computer user discretion even more, effectively removing user choice, i.e., case-by-case decision-making.
Perhaps some computer users, the rare ones who do not routinely follow unsolicited "advice" blindly, might respond to the question of updating with something like, "What choice do I have?" That there is no meaningful choice, or perception thereof, in deciding whether to install an "update" is not a coincidence, methinks.
Maybe updating is a gamble. There are winners and losers. On several occasions, I have won by not updating, i.e., blindly installing more code from so-called "tech" company without being to peruse the code. Other times I have gotten lost by updating. It seems that quite often the "updates" include code that serves me no benefit and in fact reduces the computer's utility to me. Meanwhile, it might increase utility for others or for the so-called "tech" company that collects data and sells ad services. One size does not fit all. Sometimes the losses can outweigh the gains, if any.
Hopefully there is a lawsuit filed over this Pixel 4a "update". Through discovery we may be able to learn what happened.
> always update
There's seems to be an army of aspiring CVE bros cargo-culting this idiocy; they pretend to live in a parallel universe where state-sponsored intelligence groups are spending millions to get at the cat photos on their phones.
Obviously the premise that you should just blindly update a device where you have no recourse if the update breaks workflow/functionality/user experience (android, ios) or tries to monetize the hardware you actually own (msft) is prima facie stupid.
There have been quite a few real world examples of malware scanning the internet and just infecting every vulnerable device it can find. Though this mostly only affects things directly exposed like routers or servers.
> At no point has Google came out and stated -why- they're pushing this update in the first place.
The cynic in me recommends that anyone contributing to Google (or really any big tech company) projects to use "bug fixes and performance improvements" or "What's new:" (with an empty body) as commit messages and refuse to update them until we get useful changelogs for app updates.
>My least charitable view (and immediate reaction) is that they're purposely ruining a viable budget phone to make more sales.
My wife was using a pixel 4 until last year and upgraded to a 7, I took her old phone and switched it over to my info and used it for like 2 days before it got a random update and refused to ever work again. Her 7 just got an update a couple of days ago and the battery went dead and it refused to boot until it'd been plugged in for an hour and then would only boot into recovery mode before finally returning to normal. I think google just has something really screwed up with their update process.
Google pixel software is horrendous, shocking honestly for a company with Google capabilities. Bought pixel 6 at launch, could not take calls after an update (the speaker would just emit a high pitch tone 15s after connecting, I had to ask people to call me using messaging apps for a while, lucky I did not rely on my phone for work) and wifi would switch off by itself randomly and needed to restart phone to get it working again. Had to update to beta build to get these fixed. For my model and others, it seems like every update or 2 there are populations that hit the forums with battery drain issues. I will never buy a pixel ever again.
Great comment, even though I'm concerned whether my Pixel is a ticking bomb now. The update has been downloaded to my device, but before installing it, I decided to check Reddit and found out the battery issues. Since then, I'm dismissing the update prompt, praying to not miss-click.
The article got it wrong - even before the update has been published, Google already sent e-mail to registered users with a note that the upcoming update may reduce battery life and offered either battery replacement or money: https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15701861 But the results people post are way beyond anyone expected.
The Dev options have a setting to not apply updates on reboot. I'm hoping that'll work if I forget.
I can say from experience that it doesn't. I get daily notifications & popups telling me that I'm X days out of date.
Supposedly, I've removed downloaded update using instructions from https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Pixel_4a_Battery_Perform... - hopefully this will stop popups:
>Users can delete an already downloaded (and not yet installed) update: Settings -> Apps -> All Apps -> Google Play Services -> Storage and cache -> Manage Space and from there on delete all data through the "Clear all data" button.
If you're rooted you can turn (most of) these off.
Google products have consistently been timebombs. I recall the Nexus 7 which had storage that would grind to an unusable halt after a few years.
They don't have the culture or the integration to properly support old devices the way Apple can. Everyone vilified Apple for CPU governers that extended device life by underclocking instead of browning out... this is the kind of behavior that would have deserved the backlash they got.
But the bar is so low with Google and Android devices in general that the outrage will be limited.
If they were trying to "purposely ruin a viable budget phone", what about the rest of now obsolete and just as budget Pixels? (like 3a, 4a 5g, 5a, etc.)
> My least charitable view (and immediate reaction) is that they're purposely ruining a viable budget phone to make more sales.
Given the legal & regulatory trouble Apple got in and is currently in depending on jurisdiction for doing this, it seems highly unlikely Google would have picked now to attempt the same thing. Especially since it's literally a single device, and even the sibling 4a 5g didn't get the same treatment.
The silence is inexcusable, though.
The repair places have been overwhelmed; I've had three apppoints to replace my wife's 4a battery that have been cancelled because they ran out of stock due to huge unexpected demand.
I am still on a 4a.
I really hate how in subsequent generations, they faithfully cloned Apple's design decisions of removing ports and making the device gigantic.
"For customers who are dissatisfied with iphones,
Our product is a slightly different iphone-like device."
I mean come on now, what the hell...
About twice a decade google makes a good phone and the others are just iphone knockoffs
I feel this a lot. Android's used to differentiate themselves from iPhones by having useful technical features at a competitive price. I used to be die-hard pro-Android, but now I can find very few reasons to buy one.
Now the Android UI is sparse and wobbly, Androids lost call recording, sideloading is limited, and they raised their prices to cost as much as iPhones.
Meanwhile, iPhones got call recording, they opened up NFC (a bit) and they support CalDAV and CardDAV and SMB natively in its built-in apps. The "control center" on iOS is customizable, to the point they do what Android's quick tiles did before 2020 or so.
It's very frustrating-- I wish they still made Androids like they used to :(
This comment equates Android with Google phones for some reason. The complaints have nothing to do with Android — side loading is light years ahead of Apple (and third party application stores can finally automatically update applications). Call recording works fine on my friend's Xiaomi 14T (I think) that he bought just a couple of weeks ago, and it works fine on my own device that's on latest Lineage (Android 15). There's lots of choice in UI depending on which vendor you're going with; I'm fine with stock Lineage (i.e. stock Android). There's lots of choice price wise (even the homeless have smartphones these days), while the cheapest iPhone costs about two median monthly salaries here.
Just don't buy anything from Google, they've always screwed something up.
I have a very small pool of Androids I consider. Pixels maintain a strong security model (similar to what iPhones have), and they allow you to re-lock the bootloader after installing a non-stock OS. It's between a Pixel, or a FairPhone.
I liked Lineage, but an unlocked bootloader is a security non-starter for a device that's so personal and vital.
For those using the stock OS, Googles are nice because you "only" have Google's spyware built in to the OS.
I didn't realize there were some non-stick OSes that you could re-lock the bootloader for. Which ones?
GrapheneOS and CalyxOS are the only ones I'm aware of! It requires OS support and the phone to support it too, so it's a rare combo.
Same- I stick with them out of spite, since I refuse to use a device that doesn't allow replacing the OS or installing your own software ("sideloading")
But they're pretty clearly worse as phones and I'll go to my grave mad about the headphone jack.
I'm still mad that I have to keep track of a tiny 3.5mm to USB-C dongle.
I lost mine yesterday -_+ have to buy a new one I guess
pure evil
I've been very happy to have my headphone port back since I upgraded from iPhone 7 to REDMAGIC 9S Pro
I think this is something apple doesn't realize.
They used to have a really good human factors/ui team. I remember Bruce Tognazzini and reading his blog.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Bruce_Tognazzini
I think I noticed around ios 7 things were getting bad. buttons didn't look like buttons, on-screen controls started being hidden, and form trumped function. Then like you said, ports disappeared and to me "do the wrong thing correctly" started winning.
but the worst thing is that apple sets an example. The same "simplify for sales, but not usability" technique has happened to countless other products in many industries. all laptops have elegant looking keys that have no curve to fit and center your fingers. Tesla cars have a pleasing-looking design, but when you drive them, you can't lean on the touchscreen to hit targets, you don't have drive selection or turn signal stalks to help you get into a parking space easily, and "elegant simplicity" is "cost cutting for the peons".
sigh.
Really I think technology lines can also suffer from Gramsci's interregnum.
Did the 4a have anything other than an aux port? I definitely still miss it, having moved onto a Pixel 7, but on the other hand I've also mostly stopped listening to anything with headphones from it. In surprising fashion, the fact that my screen is still intact and I feel pretty comfortable watching videos in the shower has proven more valuable.
Also the OS is copying Apple, making it worse.
Nah the OS is way better than iOS, unless you're joking about the update retroactively degrading the device.
Yes but these are physical locations, not personal objects.
The reason I don't choose a hotel 500 miles away is fairly obvious.
This also applies to parking lots for the same reason...
I think it's just cargo culting products. Apple made electronics sexy fashion accessories through their marketing, advertising and branding.
The problem is the misattribution of their success to the poor choices they have the customer loyalty to get away with.
Nobody has said "well thank God my new MacBook has no ports" or "I'm glad my battery isn't removable". The support column for these decisions is empty.
> Nobody has said "well thank God my new MacBook has no ports" or "I'm glad my battery isn't removable". The support column for these decisions is empty.
No, but they do say "thank god my device survived being splashed by water" or "I'm happy this teeny tiny thin device doesn't leave an unsightly lump in my pocket"
The de-featuring isn't capricious -- it's a result of optimizing for different tradeoffs. While it would be best for the customers if multiple vendors managed to tile the pareto frontier of feature combinations, allowing us all to pick a product that serves us best, for the vendors bunching up around a single point is a more stable equilibrium.
I've never bought that argument. Apple wanted to sell high margin accessories that get broken, lost and replaced often because people hold on to their devices about 4 years now instead of the 1-2 from 10 years ago.
I use a panasonic wired headphone with a mic, $10. Airpods are $200. They wanted to increase their costs and frequency of purchase by hiding it behind accessories with higher profits and shorter longevity than the primary device.
My Pixel 4a battery started swelling up recently. I assume it's a Note 7 problem they are trying to avoid. Google did pay me $50 for my phone which is not too bad.
>Hi, (soon to be ex) Pixel 4a user here. Regardless of why this update has happened, the way Google have went about this update is sketchy at best, and deceitful at worst. To be plain: this phone has been EOL for 1½ years now. This update has appeared out of the blue and specifically decimates the battery + charging capabilities.
See the Fitbit Charge 5 issue from 2023 and it just happened again with the Sense and Versa...
https://www.androidauthority.com/fitbit-sense-versa-3-batter...
I also own a 4a - the amount of hoops Google performed to explicitly prevent downgrades for (only) the 4a by removing all old Android images (and only for it) leads me to fear your charitable view is true. Only the tinyest sliver of customers would ever try to downgrade / reflash their phone, it IMO doesn't make sense to do this if they just want to increase sales a bit. And then again, why only for the 4a.
Which, should it be true, would make the lack of explanation from Google horrible and asinine. If (and this is a big if, it's all speculation, because Google doesn't open their mouth) there is a hardware fault with the battery, I would very much like to know outright as a customer, no matter the PR damage for Google.
Hello I'm not sure if you can help but I made a post on here as well as a topic: https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=42871613
There is no way Google is making software update plans based on the revenue opportunity for breaking phones that are already 2 years past end of life.
The numbers just don't make sense.
Users who love 5-year-old phones can easily get a cheap used phone, which are in abundant supply.
Your incredulity is misplaced. They’ve admitted in depositions this is a basis for decision making like this.
I'm (we all are) constantly reminded to update our phones to latest available updates, but sh*t like this is what teaches users to instead disable and ignore updates indefinitely, under the premise of "if it works don't touch it" (addendum: "... because most probably an update will break it")
And here I am, ignoring updates on my Pixel 6a since October 2024 (there were reports of crashes or bricking, what a surprise) and planning to keep doing that for the foreseeable future.
Sucks having to choose between a potentially (even likely, seeing the trend) broken device or an unsecured one. Pick your poison.
I was visiting my parents for the holidays and came across this exact mindset. I usually push them to update for security, but I learned that they stopped doing that this year. Apparently some update broke/removed/changed an accessibility feature on their phone in a way that I couldn’t figure out how to revert. My mom had updated her phone first so only she was affected. My dad now refuses to update his phone and both of them have completely stopped updating for fear that something else will “break”. I can’t really blame them, but it does worry me and now I’m trying to think of what I can do to secure their devices if they’re not going to update.
The software industry has known how to do this for a very long time, but some companies refuse to do it. You maintain a "sustaining" branch just for security and other legitimately urgent fixes, and a main branch for everything else. Users are nudged more strongly to apply the sustaining fixes and the main update branch should be optional.
We have immensely powerful version control and branching at developers' disposal, much better than at any past time I can think of. Yet, most companies insist on having a single release that increments, and users must take everything or nothing whenever they update.
Phone/OS manufacturers are actually better than most, and both major operating systems do provide security updates in parallel with major (feature) updates, but only for a very short amount of time.
But it isn't this simple, because you wouldn't need a single "maintaining" branch. You would need one for each feature release that the user may stop at.
So if you release the feature branch every 3 months after a few years you will have a dozen maintaining branches to backport fixes to, and in which to carefully test that the fix actually works. The problem is linearly worse if you release the feature branch more often.
> So if you release the feature branch every 3 months after a few years you will have a dozen maintaining branches to backport fixes to, and in which to carefully test that the fix actually works. The problem is linearly worse if you release the feature branch more often.
This has been solved by LTS releases for some time. You have a newest release branch that gets feature updates immediately and an LTS branch which has a full release e.g. once every two or three years, at which point it catches up on features to the then-current newest release branch. The newest release branch doesn't have long-term support and you're expected to take the latest feature update, the LTS branch gets only security updates, the user can choose between the two or three LTS releases currently in the support window or the newest release branch.
"This has been solved" is an arrogant way to put it.
Only if it hasn't actually been solved. LTS releases resolve the conflict between providing a stable system that receives only security updates and separately maintaining dozens of separate branches.
They don't solve the problem, though, they merely reduce its scope. Ubuntu's LTS versions only last five years for free users, and they currently have to maintain seven of them.
And now instead of having a small update every now and then that you can perhaps try to adapt to, you have a massive update every 5 years or whatever (or less if you happened to start out just before the next LTS) that'll basically guaranteed wreck everything (by design even!!) and for all intents and purposes might as well not exist cause there's no way you're upgrading to the horrible "new" mess. And we're back at people being stuck on outdated software, but now there's just absolutely no way whatsoever you'll get them to upgrade.
Never mind the problem of if you started out on a non-LTS version.
And also the problem of not getting the actually nice updates, and perhaps losing app compatibility.
So, no, not solved at all.
This was, I believe, the problem that Microsoft wanted to resolve with their gradual burndown of WSUS - a lot of shops (including one I used to work at) would selectively roll out updates based on whether they thought they were relevant, resulting in an explosion of configurations that Microsoft had absolutely never tested against, and naturally, a lot of breakage.
This doesn't really jive with reality as Windows is plenty buggy in the presence or absence of the latest updates. Microsoft has slowly eliminated end user controls over updates because it would interfere with their ability to monetize their customer base. You can't really push a telemetry update, if updates aren't being applied.
Or give the user the choice when first powering on the device.
Select: Base version that will only receive security updates. No changes in features. OR All updates
Edit: By "Base version" I mean the first software version for that device.
Frankly, even the scarequotes around break feel misplaced. Your Mom can't use the device like she wants to. An accessibility feature is gone to the point you can't get it back. That feels pretty broken to me.
Yeah, you’re probably right. I just wanted to write my anecdotal experience in a way that would avoid the “you’re holding it wrong” crowd because the point is how this leads to broken trust, not whatever broken feature it is.
Hmm. Assuming Android, install Firefox with uBlock Origin, and hide the Chrome and App Store launchers someplace deep?
It’s not an ad thing. It was an OS level accessibility feature dealing with text sizing and other reading related settings.
Sorry, I should have quoted your post. I was responding to this portion:
> now I’m trying to think of what I can do to secure their devices if they’re not going to update
Gotcha. That might help somewhat but it wouldn’t solve the “never update Android or any other app” problem. I’d also have to get them used to using a new browser. It’s a larger problem that their trust in tech was easily (possibly irreversibly) broken after years of me slowly convincing them and getting them used to letting their devices update. They are even older now and having had a stint working in the senior care tech space, I know that trying to tech the older generation to use tech safely is a very high hurdle. Now that I don’t live near them, I’m not sure that’s a hurdle that can be easily overcome.
Google 4a user here. They pushed an update while I was on a ski trip in Korea - I updated an hour before getting on my bus and.. the application launcher started crashing on unlock. I couldn't open any apps.
Thankfully, I was able to get into the settings and switch to Lawnchair without a working "desktop UI", but without a second application launcher I would have been totally screwed. I checked the Play Store afterwards and saw hundreds of people with the same issue.
On Linux I can choose which "security" updates to install, and only install those. Why can't Windows and Android provide such a feature?
Stuff like this is why I keep printing entrance tickets and the like. I don't want to end up in a situation where I have to trust software that is known to have new bugs every months to get into a place without any sort of backup.
>Stuff like this is why I keep printing entrance tickets and the like.
I almost got completely screwed by my pixel updating right before a concert while I was already out of town. Luckily my wife was able to login to my computer and forward the tickets to someone else that I was with, but it was a close call because she was walking out the door to do something herself when I managed to get ahold of her.
This works until you start attending events that require you to present your cell phone for entrance
What? For what purpose? I've never heard of or encountered this.
Some concerts have tickets that refresh every N seconds, ostensibly to prevent counterfeiting. https://conduition.io/coding/ticketmaster/
In this case, if you don’t have a phone that can display Ticketmaster’s code, you’re just SOL, since they decided to break being able to just print out your code.
as others mention ticket master seems to do this for some venues and events
> Why can't Windows and Android provide such a feature?
Windows does.
Android "can't" because the OS is a partition image with libraries not intended to be updated piecemeal, not a collection of loosely related external projects like Linux is.
Nothing actually requires Android to be that way. They chose poorly but every new release is an opportunity to fix it.
> They chose poorly
Did they? Immutable system images are a pretty solid feature to have. It's a lot less "fall over broken as shit randomly" than desktop Linux is...
Piecemeal updates are also absolute hell to support - they rapidly lead to an untestable combinatorial explosion of possible software loadouts. Even Ubuntu doesn't officially support installing packages from a mixture of point releases (e.g. installing Ubuntu 24.10 packages on the 24.04 LTS); it might be technically possible, but if anything breaks, you get to keep the pieces.
Desktop Linux doesn't actually do that unless you're trying to use a rolling release distribution. The way stable distributions work is that the packages largely remain the same for a given major version throughout its lifespan, but individual packages can still receive security updates.
I've had "stable" distributions fall over upgrading between their major versions.
But you missed the point that Android's system image is immutable and updates are atomic. A user can't screw it up. This is not an insignificant feature, and it's something you also get with something like Fedora Silverblue. Which then also doesn't let you pick and choose what updates to get.
Major version upgrades occasionally break things because they're a new feature release but are then trying to migrate configuration from the existing system. But the same thing happens with "atomic" upgrades if you're trying to migrate existing configuration, because the bug is really in the migration system that didn't properly handle that configuration variance, not because the packages aren't upgraded atomically. Which is why phones sometimes do break on major version upgrades for the same reason.
>Google 4a user here. They pushed an update while I was on a ski trip in Korea - I updated an hour before getting on my bus and.. the application launcher started crashing on unlock. I couldn't open any apps.
I had that happen like a year ago while I was getting ready to go to a concert in another state. Luckily I was able to call my wife have her login to my gmail and forward my digital tickets to someone else in my party.
Nonsense like this is why I personally will never buy a google hardware product ever again.
It is also why it is so difficult to recommend an android phone because of google being an advert company first.
The other side of the coin is that the Pixels are one of the few (only?) devices supported by GrapheneOS.
(My Pixel 6 is rock solid on that by the way.)
I had a nexus 5x and then a pixel 4a. The latter I bought used as a burner phone.
This is the core problem - it is a roll of the dice whether your hardware will work five years from today.
I’m less concerned about the software but that is also a problem.
Meanwhile, my iPhone SE from 2016 still works as advertised.
apple is an advertising company too. what's the alternative?
Apple also has an advertising company. And they track you, but they get money by selling you stuff mostly. I’m deep into the Apple ecosystem system and they don’t force updates, try to upsell me every time updates are installed. I have no ads on the apps I use. They are quite happy for you to fork over gobs of money and call it a day.
Googles primary source of income is ads. All this stuff they do is the primary way they get money. People need to stop being surprised this is where they ended up.
> I’m deep into the Apple ecosystem system and they don’t force updates
My iPad is pretty naggy to install updates, moreso than my Pixel phone even. iOS doesn't automatically update like Android does, but if anything that seems less like it's because Apple disagrees with that and more because their update system is so shit they can't get away with it. It's inexcusably slow to apply updates.
> try to upsell me every time updates are installed
They are the only ones to have lost a lawsuit for doing literally this. Batterygate wasn't that long ago, surely you didn't forget about it already? Heck class actions about it are still happening in various countries!
Something like CalyxOS on Fairphone, presumably.
Apple is no where near as invasive as Google. Most sites on the Internet phone home to Google. Here are some examples:
https://securepubads.g.doubleclick.net/ https://news.google.com/swg/js/v1/swg.js - I found these on the Washington Post's web site.
https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/opensans/v20/cJZKeOuBrn4kERxqtaU... https://www.googletagmanager.com/static/service_worker/51n0/... - I found these on New Egg's home page.
https://cm.g.doubleclick.net/pixel?google_nid=a9&google_cm&e... - I found this going to Amazon's home page.
https://www.gstatic.com/recaptcha/releases/I0bG74fWAenNf3Z5n... https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/anchor?ar=1&k=6LetQiEU... https://fonts.gstatic.com/s/roboto/v18/KFOmCnqEu92Fr1Mu4mxK.... - I found all of these on democrats.org.
https://ad.doubleclick.net/activity;register_conversion=1;sr...? https://9323526.fls.doubleclick.net/activityi;src=9323526;ty...? https://www.google.com/recaptcha/api2/anchor?ar=1&k=6LdJ810b... - I found these on www.gop.com.
Basically, Google tracks peopple everywhere. They track what news you read, where you shop, and what political party you support. Apple does none of this. No one tracks people on the Internet like Google. Facebook doesn't. Amazon doesn't. X doesn't. Microsoft doesn't (the own Bing). Apple certainly doesn't.
It's crazy- I feel like outside of videogames, and sometimes programming languages, almost every single "update" makes things worse.
They shuffle the UI around, or put in more ads, or recently- add some new AI feature. Genuinely can't remember the last OS or App update I've been happy about.
Makes me sad to think of all the developers working long hours just to make their users upset.
The way Google botched the Android 11 update to my Pixel 4a was the nail in the coffin in convincing me to go back to iPhone. I don't want to upgrade my Android and see a totally different UI every single time. I want consistency and I don't want Google to mess with things that already work. This is very childish on their side and just shows that Google engineers and managers don't use their own products.
>I don't want Google to mess with things that already work.
Unfortunately, that is exactly how Google rewards performance internally
If you ignore updates, you will get hacked. If you think a bad update is a problem, wait until you have to clean up a hack. It will cost more money and take more time than buying a new phone.
My advice is to buy phones from reputable manufacturers. I have had an iPhone for over 10 years and I have been very happy. The work well, last, and the performance is always good. My current goal is to keep my current phone 7 years. I will update it when Apple stops supplying updates.
> My advice is to buy phones from reputable manufacturers.
You mean those slowing down your phone on updates [0] and not providing critical security updates in time [1] while not allowing existing more secure alternative browsers [2]?
The true alternative is phones running mainline Linux. Sent from my Librem 5.
[0] https://www.npr.org/2020/11/18/936268845/apple-agrees-to-pay...
I think security updates are mostly BS designed to make users voluntarily give up control. Almost nobody would ever be affected by these CVEs but the ceding of control affects everyone.
You can revert this if you unlock your bootloader:
https://xdaforums.com/t/undo-the-january-2025-update-without...
(EDIT: Just to be clear, and which is also mentioned in that post: unlocking the bootloader will reset the device. If your device is already unlocked though, you will be able to keep the data.)
Of course, I would just advise to switch to LineageOS directly, since Google has stopped providing security updates for the Pixel 4a already in August 2023. I've run LineageOS for years on the Pixel 4a and it has worked pretty much perfectly for me:
https://wiki.lineageos.org/devices/sunfish/
Android 15 (LineageOS 22) was just released for it.
Be careful about doing that. Google announced that starting tomorrow, they're going to be remotely wiping all Pixel 4a's that aren't running the new update: https://www.reddit.com/r/Pixel4a/comments/1id6zw8/attention_...
How the hell is this even legal?
How is the photo quality? I love the pictures from the old 12MP sensor + Googles software, but I understand this is not in Lineage?
The Pixel camera app is available from the Play Store, and there are third-party ports of Gcam to other devices that offer extra configuration options. https://www.celsoazevedo.com/files/android/google-camera/
I'd also be interested to know if a Google Camera app installed post-facto to LineageOS is compatible with the remote control & viewfinder of the Pixel Watch.
Well, they are good enough for me, but to be honest, I'm not particularly picky... As said in a parallel post, you can get GCam in APK form (I run LineageOS without GApps) but I hear it's a bit trial&error to find one that works and I haven't bothered.
Loved the photos from my 4a when I had it many years ago.
Videos, on the other hand...
There's a nice video about this from Louis Rossmann [1] that talks about this in detail and tries to find some reasons for it, and he seems to suggest that the update was never about improving the battery life as in getting more usage per charge out of the battery, but improving it as in limiting the battery full charge capacity to minimize potential problems with it, because he (and others) assume that they identified bad batches and are trying to fix potential problems with them by limiting it.
If you prefer reading over watching (thanks @MaximilianEmel): https://wiki.rossmanngroup.com/wiki/Pixel_4a_Battery_Perform...
He's a great advocate for right-to-repair . we have a crisis that few people are concerned about.
This destroyed my phone, and their appeasement process was terrible too. There was no way for me to find out whether there was a supported repair shop nearby, the $50 cash was apparently through a very dodgy company, and then $100 google store credit didn't disclose that it's "upon review within three weeks" until after you irrevocably chose the option.
The whole thing is ridiculous and poorly handled. Sadly, if my phone had just cracked or failed to turn on, I'd probably have upgraded happily and moved on with my life. As it is, now I feel like something was taken from me. So it goes
Here is a map of the stores:
https://images.ctfassets.net/d9ybqgejqp0w/7hP2z3Oyn8xH4TvFJt...
You can schedule an appointment here:
A retired coworker got a 4a off eBay two years ago, and it's eligible for a free battery replacement.
I received the email from Google notifying me of this "battery performance update" for my Pixel 4A which actually drains the battery faster, so it left me scratching my head wondering what a "performance update" is for Google.
After the update, my battery was depleted at an alarming rate. I applied for the $100 voucher but I've never heard back from Google. So I decided to bite the bullet and moved to iPhone instead. Apple might not be the best, but this was the last straw for me.
You dont remember batterygate then?
It was the opposite, slowing down the processor to preserve the battery (when a battery was quite old).
Lol this was the most blown out of proportion "gate" ever and a nothing burger really. The issue wasn't what Apple did, as it is a very common practice in the industry and I bet almost every other manufacturer did it too. The issue was that they didn't notify the user.
Could you tell me what companies did the same thing in the mobile phone industry? Did those companies notify the user?
I can guarantee you every Pixel, Samsung, or Huawei phone had similar functionality built in but was never scrutinized.
I'm a weirdo who carries two pixel 4as. I'm also waiting for a response regarding the $100 voucher on one of my phones... My other one I took in for the free battery replacement, and that's doing OK.
But yeah, I was planning to go for a Pixel 9 or 9a (when that's been out for a while), but this forcing of the hand by google is absolute BS, and the alternatives are unsatisfactory.
I recently ordered a Fairphone 5, imported from the UK. Stock Android experience, replaceable battery, SD card slot, unlocked bootloader and modding is encouraged. Its basically what the Pixel (Nexus) line was originally supposed to be.
I'm trying to figure out what the actual latest update is doing regarding the battery. I found an update to the kernel binary but it doesn't seem the source has been updated.
Can I submit a GPL request to Google to get the kernel source?
Marcan is on it:
https://fosstodon.org/@marcan@treehouse.systems/113914172891...
Wow, that is exactly what I was hoping to do, but I wasn't able to figure out more than 1 or 2 of those steps. Thanks!
If you own a device, you're entitled to a copy of all GPL software that came with it, including some build tools. However, if the diminished battery performance comes from some kind of firmware update for an embedded microcontroller, you're probably out of luck there, unless that controller also runs GPL software.
It's possible the changes you're looking for are already listed on one of these repos: https://android.googlesource.com/device/google/sunfish-sepol... https://android.googlesource.com/device/google/sunfish-kerne... https://android.googlesource.com/device/google/sunfish/
(sunfish is the codename for the Pixel 4a)
I looked through all the sunfish repos first, which is how I found this: https://android.googlesource.com/device/google/sunfish-kerne...
But apparently sunfish-kernel only contains binaries.
Given there's an update to Image.lz4, that seems there's an update to the kernel. I also compared the binary to the previous version and found some new strings possibly related to battery charging profile.
Next I checked out the source using Google's documentation but the latest commit is here: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/msm/+/refs/heads/and...
But maybe I'm looking in the wrong place.
If those pre-compiled binaries aren't based on GPL software, I don't think you'll have much luck getting their sources.
Android's source code is a maze of branches and tags, unfortunately. The change can have been made in the generic cross-device kernel tree, or it could've been a separate module, or it could've been a binary.
One thing you could consider is checking out the kernel for a project like LineageOS: https://github.com/LineageOS/android_device_xiaomi_sm6150-co... They usually pull+filter changes from upstream. For instance, these changes may be of interest: https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_device_xiao... https://review.lineageos.org/c/LineageOS/android_device_xiao... These kernels are used for a variety of devices with similar hardware, so not all changes have anything to do with the Pixel 4a, but it could prove useful in your search.
Image.lz4 is definitely a Linux kernel, and it's definitely changed: https://android.googlesource.com/device/google/sunfish-kerne...
Would changes to external closed-source binary files change the kernel image itself? There are kernel modules in that commit but it looks to me like they all come directly from here: https://developers.google.com/android/drivers
Google does provide detailed instructions for downloading all sources for the kernel, and I didn't see any changes since 2023 to any source files: https://source.android.com/docs/setup/
Thanks for the extra places to look. I'll check them out.
I also looked around AOSP and found the commit for the battery alert icon [1], but no kernel source.
[1] https://android.googlesource.com/platform/frameworks/base/+/...
If you're reversing this: I was curious if Google determines if your device is "affected" using the phone's serial, or the battery's serial. I've seen reports that people who replace the battery manually outside of the program still experience diminished performance. But of course that could just be because they replaced their defective battery with another defective battery.
I'm going through the kernel with Ghidra but not very good at it and not having much luck.
I do have an idea about what it's checking to determine if a battery is affected, but I don't have enough data yet to know if it's just a coincidence.
I don't imagine something like this would be implemented in the kernel? Might help to search system apps/binaries for the string displayed in the notification alert: https://raw.githubusercontent.com/nathan-contino/images/main...
Why not? The kernel seems to handle low level charging and battery logic, for example: https://android.googlesource.com/kernel/msm/+/refs/heads/and...
I'm not hoping to argue, only to learn. This isn't my area of expertise.
I should clarify that it isn't my area of expertise either; if you already found something in the kernel, by all means, keep looking there! I was more trying to suggest a starting place but it seems you're past that point already, good work :)
I'm semi homeless and the forced Pixel 4a battery update made my phone unusable and I'm in a state of tears. What can I do? Reddit deleted my post (I am hoping it's not because of Google employees)
I don't want to get too long into what happened in my life, but I had a Pixel 4a and everything was running great. Even when I was on the streets homeless I was able to charge it. I'm still struggling in and out, and apparently there was an update that came automatically to my phone. I checked and talked to live support in the library and they said it was just a battery update and it will last a bit less. That wasn't a big deal I thought but now the update came and my battery went from many hours to maybe half an hour now and doesn't charge at all or very slowly. I have interviews and some other small jobs that I have to do and just hard life right now and I do not have any money for this. I am a bit emotional so I asked while tearing up to Google support why they did this and I can't afford this my life is in shambles but they didn't help me. Even with the battery replacement I do not live near any local shops and mailing it in would not be possible for my situation. I bought this phone when my life was good and I only like this one and want to use this one.
All my stuff is on here and I don't know too much about phones so I just want this to work. I don't have money to fix this. I feel like the phone will die any second. What can be done? I didn't know they would do this. My life just keeps getting worse... I always feared my phone getting stolen on the streets but never thought Google would steal my phone.
What can I do? I don't have much minutes or data and can't afford it, is there a number I can call Google directly? I don't want to play with the phone and do anything weird my life is on it and can't back it up.
Thank you all.
I have a Google Pixel 4a and planned to use the phone until it physically no longer worked. I loved it, especially with its wired headphone jack and small size.
It has worked for 3+ years and held a charge for 2-3 days easily until the other week when they pushed the battery patch. Now it dies in a few hours with light usage.
I asked Google support on what will happen if I get a battery replacement and it's still draining fast. They won't answer.
Google reps at a repair center said a battery replacement is unlikely to fix the drain issue since the drain behavior is attached to an OS update you can't opt out of.
This is really frustrating to be ignored by Google after they essentially bricked a fully working device that I paid for.
This is a type of move where I'm tempted to de-Google myself over this, including deleting my YouTube channel with 20k subs that I've been regularly posting to for almost a decade.
My whole business (selling courses and contract work) depends on SEO from Google and YouTube and I'm close to saying fuck it and destroying all of that out of principle on how poorly they are treating folks over this issue. I haven't made that decision yet but it's close to be honest. Close enough that I'm openly posting this message.
The pixel 4a battery life saga was what made both me and my entire extended family never even consider buying a pixel phone again (and move to Samsung or iPhones).
Google denied the issues existed forever, then shipped a fix that somehow made them even worse, and made the phone unusable for years. I hope we were not the only ones.
Samsung with Nova Launcher is pretty usable. It has its annoying quirks but probably closer to your old experience than a full iPhone switch.
Same problem here (a few hours of battery life and it's very slow to charge now). This update makes no sense at all, excepted if you want to force your users to buy a new phone.
For me, it should be a RED flag on the Pixel lineup and on the confidence in Google.
I filled https://www.stopobsolescence.org/.
Just bought a pixel 9 pro fold. I am now returning it. Tricks like this mean I won't be a customer.
This needs more coverage. Perfectly good phones are getting thrown out because of a software update.
There's been a lot of activity on Reddit and Android tech news websites. /r/Pixel4a has been absolutely busy with activity lately, lots of people asking for help.
Decent summary post here: https://www.lambdalatitudinarians.org/techblog/2025/01/09/th...
My experience was kid dropped my old phone on holiday, we tried to remember why my spouse's old phone got replaced, and remembered she had a pixel 4a and the battery life had gotten really poor.
There was some news at the time that the 4a would be getting a 'battery performance update' and that it would result in some users getting a warning about their battery performing poorly and some would be eligible for $50 or a repair.
When I eventually got around to prepping the phone for the kid, lo and behold, the update was ready, I did it, and the battery was bad, and it linked me to the battery performance campaign page...
Which needed the IMEI, then said I could get $50, a $100 coupon or bring it in for repair, and there was a shop reasonably near me. I brought it in and they swapped the battery in about 2 hours with no extra drama.
I don't know why you would throw your phone out from this update... Although I wouldn't be surprised if you had already thrown it out because the battery performance was an issue before the update too.
Google ended security updates for the Pixel 4a in August 2023, so running this as your daily driver was already problematic. Fortunately, LineageOS officially supports the 4a, and v22 (aka Android 15) was just released for it.
This attitude (and the word "problematic") is so tiring. What is the actual problem with running it as your daily driver? What specific vulnerability are you actually concerned about? Unless there's something like an arbitrary code execution bug in one of the networking/radio stacks, "there aren't updates" is a statement with approximately zero useful information.
OK, let me google it for you:
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=2024-43096
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4377...
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=CVE-2024-4377...
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=2024-49747
https://cve.mitre.org/cgi-bin/cvename.cgi?name=2024-49748
These are just the RCE bugs without user interaction that were fixed with the January update. They are in the Bluetooth stack.
It seems to me that at this point for the normal person, the biggest security issue is not that some hacker will hack their phone to steal their data and render their device unusable, but rather that Google will
So I'm not terribly familiar with Bluetooth. Are these something that can be exploited by an unpaired device?
"Google Android on a Pixel 4a is vulnerable to remote code execution by arbitrary nearby wireless devices" is certainly a better reason to not use one than "security updates have ended".
> So I'm not terribly familiar with Bluetooth. Are these something that can be exploited by an unpaired device?
Who knows, someone would need to write an actual exploit for these. Just quickly skim through the Android security bulletins at
https://source.android.com/docs/security/bulletin
and you'll see that every month lots and lots of CVEs are fixed with at least high or even critical severity in various stacks. If you're running a phone that hasn't received updates since August 2023, you can assume that you have dozens of remotely exploitable bugs on your system. The security track record of Android is absolutely terrible.
That phone hacking is not a big thing is simply because it's usually much easier for a hacker to get into the cloud services people use instead through targeted phishing attacks. If that makes you feel safe using a phone without updates, then good for you, but don't claim these updates aren't actually fixing serious bugs every month.
The fact that their bulletins say that there are high and critical vulnerabilities every month is sort of my point. Is this thing actually critical? Can you only send the vulnerable commands after you have paired? [0] suggests these are used after pairing, but like I said I'm not familiar enough with BT. If that's the case though, "User interaction is not needed for exploitation" is misleading; I'm not going to pair with random devices, so I'm not concerned. I see that with other vulnerabilities too. e.g. CVE-2024-31320 from last year is "critical", and says "there is a possible way to establish a companion device association without any confirmation due to CDM. User interaction is not needed for exploitation." Except if I'm understanding correctly, you need to install a malicious app, and what it does is let that app use a bluetooth device without asking. Big whoop, that's how everything works on desktop, and it's fine.
The problem is the security industry has such a low signal:noise ratio that it makes sense to just ignore everything they say as a user. They're constantly lying and saying there are important security updates when there aren't, and that everything is high/critical severity when it isn't. In a corporate setting, you just unthinkingly update to check boxes, but as an individual, it makes no sense to do that. And with Android, you have to take possibly undesirable feature updates to get kernel or system library updates. For some products, security updates are to "secure" the device against its owner! Advisories are often lacking enough information to be able to evaluate impact, which further makes it clear that the people publishing them are to be viewed with a skeptical eye.
It should be immediately obvious whether this is exploitable by random passersby (if it actually is) without me having to go learn how bluetooth works at a protocol level. "Don't think about it and just update, install a new OS, or buy new devices" is not a useful attitude.
Things don't become end of life when they stop receiving updates. They become finished. Whether and for what purposes they continue to be useful requires ongoing judgement.
[0] https://learn.adafruit.com/introduction-to-bluetooth-low-ene...
Just curious, does current LineageOS close these CVEs?
I know they pull firmware from disparate devices when possible.
I didn't check each one explicitly, but it looks promising
I assume its a responsibility thing. If your bank login gets hacked on a no longer supported phone, you cannot point at other issues since you were not uptodate anymore. Even if it doesn't matter.
*Written from my 4a.
That point is so weird: Why offer a "performance update" 1.5 years after the end of security updates?
Given the sudden urgency and pulling the old software, I'm assuming they're trying to avoid aging batteries exploding.
But then they should indicate that. Which they don't.
They did as much as they would.
Isn't that just 3 years after release? Is that normal for Google phones? Yikes.
For older Google phones (as well as most other Android ones) it is the standard. (AFAIU this was mostly due to Qualcomm’s policies and lack of pushback from Google et al.) Newer Google ones get 5–7 years[1], and Samsung has also switched to a similar support term (but keep in mind that only Samsung’s flagships get monthly security updates).
Does/will GrapheneOS ship this new firmware? My Pixel 4a needed a new battery. I ordered the kit from ifixit, but was worried about possibly breaking the screen during replacement and being without a phone. So I bought a used iPhone XS to try out Apple-land. My plan was to put GrapheneOS on the Pixel 4a and decide eventually if my next phone would be a new Pixel with GrapheneOS or a new iPhone.
Since then this whole debacle has unfolded. GrapheneOS's installation instructions say that it updates the phone's firmware to the latest early in the installation process. GrapheneOS's releases page has a "2025012701" release for Pixel 4a. But the release notes don't have any mention of Pixel 4a since version 2023100300. I'm trying to figure out if GrapheneOS has actually updated their Pixel 4a image since then, and whether it would install the battery breaking firmware.
I wonder why these "forced updates till kaputt" do not fall under (malicious) property damage. It is not just Google: My Amazon Kindle gets less and less responsive the last years without any noteworthy functional improvements. Same for the Firestick.
Best phone I've ever used. Still going great after 4 years. Don't know how long it will last. There doesn't seem to be anything available with similar form factor.
Replaced my 4a with a similar sized Moto Edge 30 Neo. Overall, much better hardware quality. I had a warranty replacement for the 4a due to cracks around the headphone jack, also happened to the replacement but that wasn't replaced.
The Moto was half the price of the 4a and is still receiving updates.
.. and appears to be basically unavailable at this time.
What makes the form factor better than others in the series? I'm curious since I've only owned a Pixel 3a and a Pixel 6a
No current phone from any manufacturer that's reasonably desirable is as small as the 4a, and few of any size have a headphone jack.
I looked into this because I find I want something I can stuff into a trouser pocket. The only reasonably viable android option was a Sony Xperia XZ2 compact, from 2018 on android 10. You can put lineage on it which is currently maintained, but that has the downsides of not passing device integrity which some apps will check, or being willing to constantly play cat and mouse to spoof it. Sony also apparently wipe a partition with a little DRM blob for the camera, which degrades some aspect of its post processing capabilities so image quality might be less. There's also the iPhone SE3 which is currently in support
I ended up getting a 'regular' sized samsung only slightly larger than the one it's replacing, but at least modern phones seem to be getting longer software support periods (assuming there's no nasty surprises included).
Pixel 8a is fairly similar in size. Headphone jacks in phones are (sadly) gone forever i'm afraid.
The 8a is 3mm wider, 8mm taller, and 45g heavier. Perhaps that's not a huge difference, but I already consider the 4a too big. I will likely continue not upgrading as long as LineageOS and the hardware remain usable.
I switched from 4a to 8a. The weight difference is substantial and really noticable at first. I've gotten used to it now and it runs great with GrapheneOS, but it marked an end of an era of smaller, lighter phones for me.
I thought about the 8a, but the PostmarketOS support wasn't the best, so I opted for a safer chip
FWIW I was on Pixel 3a until last month; bought Pixel 6 in the meantime, but it was too big and heavy to carry around, so I only used it as a "tablet", only at home.
Just updated to Pixel 8 and it fits the hand very well (including Spigen Liquid Air cover), and doesn't feel too heavy. Have a few friends who got Pixel 8 last month on sale as well and they all confirm.
> Headphone jacks in phones are (sadly) gone forever i'm afraid.
Maybe from Google phones, for now? Possibly on smaller phones. But Best Buy sells 7 models with 5g and a headphone jack. There's almost certainly more if you shop a retailer with more variety, using Best Buy because they have decent filtering.
https://www.bestbuy.com/site/searchpage.jsp?_dyncharset=UTF-...
GSMArena has a great parametric search: https://www.gsmarena.com/search.php3
Unfortunately, unlockable bootloader isn't one of the parameters available, and I consider it essential.
I like the parametric search, but searching a US retailer helps me focus on phones that are reasonable to source and use in the US. I could manage when GSM was two bands in the US, and usually two bands overseas and if you wanted a really neat phone you hoped it was quad band or at least tri band, because the really neat phones that were dual band were dual band on EU frequencies... now GSM Arena inevitably points me at phones intended for use in Japan and usually have a pretty poor match up with bands I'm likely to use while remaining flexible for use on other carriers in case it becomes a hand me down and the recipient isn't on the same carrier as me.
5.81" is not small. Even 4.7" iPhones are not small. 4" is the perfect size for a smartphone.
Speaking as a Pixel 4a customer with this update: I received the update, and like everyone else, my phone battery started draining incredibly quickly. However, after getting the free battery replacement, my phone's battery has returned to draining as normal (and on the plus side, has somewhat renewed the life of this phone).
I'm glad it worked out for you.
The problem is, the Pixel 4a is not designed to have the battery be swapped and it's common to break screens and other parts of the phone in the process. You can look up what's involved and it's no surprise that this is the case.
It's basically a nice little case of hardware and software anti-consumer policies working together to break people's devices and force them to consume more.
Without legislation nothing will change.
I think the EU is fixing it for the pixel 11a and up.
Ditto. Replaced battery, phone is as new.
It's frustrating. My phone went from 100% to 0% in under an hour. I could not rely on it for a typical workday. Thankfully my job does not require my personal phone, and thankfully the update happened on the weekend. Imagine seeing this Monday morning before work. Who has time to fiddle with firmware? And who has time to set up a new phone in the middle of a workweek, especially if you're switching to a non-Pixel phone?
The small credit does not cover the cost of inconvenience.
Contrary to was is said in the article, the 50$/100$ compensation was announced shortly before the update. It is no compensation for the mess they caused.
I still have not restarted my phone since the update. But my wife has and her phone does not hold charge for a day, compared to 48h before the update. Battery percentage gone completely unreliable. She's only doing slow charges since then in an attempt to have battery management chip somehow recover. Hard to see what they tried to "fix"
Am I the only one that had the immediate thought of "this seems intentional" when they read that they're offering the credit for a newer pixel?
Most believe that they're trying to prevent safety issues with overheating batteries. This update prevents the battery from being charged too much or too little.
If it is just that, they should have written so. Because what they wrote was that some devices may be affected from this optimization. Nothing general. And if this is really an issue, all those that now change to Lineage or Graphe will be an even bigger issue soon. Because in that case, Google knew, and did not say so.
* Send from my now charging 4a
Draining the battery from 100% to 0% in under an hour (as other commenters have mentioned) is the opposite of this, as that will necessarily dump a lot of heat.
No, it's not actually draining the battery faster. It's setting low level limits on maximum and minimum charge levels. (and also the charge rate, further controlling heat issues)
Some folks have hooked up devices between the phone and charge cable that do the coulomb counting (or similar), and (the one case I saw) showed that the phone is only taking in about 40% of the watt-hours that it was doing before the OTA update.
From what I've seen, no one can point to any actual incidents with these phones being dangerously hot. But the google FAQ did have a "Yes you can still take the pixel 4a on flights", reminiscent of the samsung phone issue several years ago...
Could be that the new 100% and 0% are something like the old 80% and 20%
If a discount on a new Pixel was the only option, I'd suspect that. $50 cash is around 2/3 what a Pixel 4a goes for on Ebay.
I applied for the $100 credit more than a week ago but it is at Google's discretion, and I've never heard back from them. Even if they offer the credit, I'm not interested anymore and I'll never use a Google Pixel again.
> Google has acknowledged the mess and offered compensation: a free battery replacement, $50 cash, or $100 credit toward a new Pixel.
Yet when people have applied for this credit they either get no response, or told it will take several weeks (which is useless when they have just screwed your old phone)
No, this is obviously an illegal scam.
My pixel 4a lasted about 3 hours before the update, now its about an hour. Even with the discount in the store, it was cheaper to get the pixel 8a and some cash from a local vendor. The ticket to get the reimbursement went surprisingly fast, still waiting on money though.
Yesterday I got my new 8a, installed grapheneos and it works very well! So far no massive issues. When I tried this on the 4a some years ago, netflix complained about general certificate stuff and casting was broken, microG et al was barely holding on. Now, no problems at all!
I'm semi homeless and Google's forced update on the Pixel 4a ruined it
Note that Google has publicly announced that the software update would reduce the battery capacity of some devices, at the beginning of the month:
> For some devices (“Impacted Devices”), the software update reduces available battery capacity and impacts charging performance.
https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/15701861?hl=en&...
More details in marcan's reverse engineering of the closed-source update: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/113914172433692339
> You can tell which battery you have physically by the number next to the QR code. 8230015901 is ATL (good) and 8230020501 is LSN (bad). If you're replacing your battery, make sure it's ATL.
Where do I find this info on my phone?
My spouse had to buy a new phone because of this issue. Neither of us got any notification about the battery issue. Even if we did, what Google is offering here isn't great. We tried to get the battery replaced, but was told that the process could likely break the screen and jack up the cost to nearly the original purchase price. Sending the phone in for repair also isn't a good solution because she needs it for auth at work. What a mess.
I resolved this problem on my Pixel 4a by installing graphene OS. YMMV.
Did you install GrapheneOS before or after the problematic update from google?
After the update from Google, my 4a did not seem to hold a charge like it did before. I read the reviews/risks and thought that my easiest options were to either roll-back the OS update, or finally give GrapheneOS a try.
ty
For me this update stopped the sim card being recognized.
Phone was a few months old, having bought a new from HK when I went traveling.
Last decent sized pixel and it was so light.
Google destroyed the battery on the Fitbit Charge 5 with an update that apparently could not be rolled back or reset. Never admitted fault, never said what the issue was, and very little was offered to affected users. Vowed to never buy Google hardware again...
https://www.androidcentral.com/wearables/fitbit-charge-5-bat...
As soon as they dropped the Nexus line, things went downhill fast. IMO the nexus 5 was peak android.
Concur, switched to iPhone around this time, as Android just started to feel like a knock off iOS rather than an alternative.
I'm sorry, but what? iOS and Android couldn't be more different, and if anything iOS has converged toward Android. Meanwhile my friend that likes to act smug about iOS has all but given up the gambit. My Pixel 9 Pro takes far better pictures, gets same or better battery life, and can crazy things like upload or download photos to Lightroom without needing to manually keep the screen on. Or you know, background tasks in general.
The nexus 5x had a major bootlooping issue.
used to be a long time pixel user. I had a pixel 2, 3 and 4a.
1. first one suddenly started bootlooping out of nowhere 2. second one's battery suddenly expanded out of nowhere and couldn't hold a charge more than 10 min 3. thrid one's battery started failing and woudln't turn on unless I plugged it into an external battery bank.
Sll 3 times while I was abroad and they are almost IMPOSSIBLE to get repaired. they use all csutom parts so none of teh repair shops were famiilar with them. google wouldn't do a thing till I came back to the united states to get the repairs done.
After 3 of these pieces of shit, I switched to an iphone. It just works. I've had zero issues with it and at least apple care won't force me to buy a ticket back to the states just to replace it.
I was in the market and wanted to go for Pixel8 pro. This charade turned me completely anti-google and I'm not even considering it even though camera is the most important attribute of the phone for me.
I am done suggesting pixel phones to my family elders. Refurbished iPhones is the way to go
marcan@ took a look at this update here: https://social.treehouse.systems/@marcan/113914172433692339
It seems like it limits max charge voltage on one exact model of the battery to much lower limit. I bet there's a reason for it and reverting the change most likely isn't the smartest for safety.
What I don't get is why Google just doesn't come out and say it.
Has there been a single Pixel with no boot loop, battery, reception, or otherwise some other major issue?
What is going on at the Pixel team??? They have probably single handedly cost Google millions of dollars
Would grapheneos (https://grapheneos.org/) help with this? I am using a pixel 4a as a "house phone" so it is plugged in all the time but I wonder if I should upgrade.
I use pixel 3 with https://calyxos.org/ as a home phone to play music, record videos, pictures etc. Calyxos is still providing extended support for 4a, but microG doesn't work as well compared to sandboxed google play services on grapheneos (which i use on my 7a). So if google services are not too important go ahead with calyxos.
> Since this is a major release, the Pixel 4a (5G) and Pixel 5 have not been ported to Android 14 QPR2 as part our initial release. We need to determine whether it makes sense to move these end-of-life devices to Android 14 QPR2 or keep them on a legacy extended support release branch based on the last Android 14 QPR1 release.
In the sense that it was a perfectly good phone, and still works with e.g. various bank apps or whatever... and I got tired of jail-break/customization stuff of smart devices about a decade ago... the extra work to wipe everything and explore a new world of things that might turn out to be broken isn't what I'd consider a reasonable option. :/
I use GrapheneOS on my pixel 4a ever since I got it a few years ago. Installation is straightforward and it is a best of both worlds - you can install and run android apps from the playstore in a sandbox.
I have three... I should try this... but so many other projects :'(
Things have come a long way. The GrapheneOS installation in particular is very straightforward. And most banks work just fine as apps, and if not via their website.
I own a pixel 4a with grapheneOS - I received a couple of os updates in the last week, haven't run into this issue yet. Will see.
My spouse and I have the same situation but strangely but my phone seems much better while my spouse's phone drains very quickly. We just took it in for a battery replacement at the Google store and should be picking it up soon.
I've had software bugs / issues with various Pixel phones (original, 4, 6, now 7) for years, and I'm unsure why I'm such a masochist.
Anyone else have this problem? Is it well known?
Qualified and applied for the cash but it's been a couple weeks and never came. Would have settled for a couple years of Youtube premium.
wow. i was actually considering getting a 4a as the lynchpin for my move back to Android (as no small Android phones exist anymore).
anyway, iPhone 13 Mini until it dissolves into dust.
I've been running GraphiteOS on my Pixel 4a (it is a backup phone) and obviously it doesn't have the battery update but I can attest that it works great with it.
Another Pixel 4A user here. Still haven't installed the marvelous update. But it'll be installed the next time I reboot. No way to stop it.
I have never had any battery issues. Now Google wants to effectively brick my beloved phone? And giving me $50 for the trouble. What. The. F. is going on.
I've requested the $50, shall be paid out within 18 days they say.
So sad. I really like (soon liked, probably) my 4a.
I'm typing this on a 3a XL that just refuses to die. Google's valuation of that device in the Store is the same, but they haven't switched it off. Guess I got lucky.
Is it possible to decline this update on the UI of an internet-connected Pixel 4a?
Mine has already updated, and I'm wondering if I had a chance to say no.
I'm getting prompts to restart in order to update. So far (~2 weeks), I was able to dismiss them.
I've updated a couple of weeks ago, but I already had a battery replaced last year, so I didn't notice anything untoward with the charge. I did however start to have a vertical green line on the screen that appears for a while, then disappears for a while. (it is possible the line is just a coincidence and an unrelated screen defect).
There's one way to get off: move to Lineage OS or postmarketOS and enjoy the device further
If it helps, I ran my 3a on Pixel Experience up until ~6 months ago, and it worked great. It's like having the exact same phone with extended upgrades.
I gave it away to someone who needed it more and upgraded to an 8a. My mission with this phone is to use it for 10 years.
Has anyone gone through that firmware update and seen what changed? What exactly are they doing to improve battery performance/reliability?
I would guess just down clocking the CPU or something.
Are these not the old images? : https://developers.google.com/android/images#bramble
Right page, wrong anchor. They removed all but the latest firmware for the "sunfish", i.e. the non-5g Pixel 4a.
Yeah, it's archived at least here.
https://web.archive.org/web/20231113025141if_/https://dl.goo...
My wife was affected by this. When she applied for the $100 credit, she was told it could take up to three weeks to get the credit form.
Which is just awesome when your current phone is broken.
I posted about it and they suggested that I keep a backup phone available at all times, thanks folks.
Hopefully people opted out of the binding arbitration for the phone so they can join a class action, right?
Lol, I opt out on every new pixel phone
I am surprised there are even any functioning 4a's left to begin with. Google intentionally designs major components of these phones to break within a year or two of normal use, like using extremely cheap NAND that fails commonly, bricking the phone.
Why don't they build a rollback "update" if they wiped the old firmware?
They as in google?
This happened in a few stages:
Rollout of the new release (Jan 8 or so; I got it maybe Jan 16?)
Folks showed you could get the old update (I don't recall specifics) and block the OTA URLs (developer settings I think?) to prevent re-update.
Google decided to make it harder to get the old firmware.
I couldn't be arsed to wipe my phone, so am just living with the new shitty future for now.
First they have to wait for the maximum number of people to buy new phones.
This reminded me of when my Nexus 5X went into a boot loop.
This reminds me of when Google's last update to the 2012 wi-fi Nexus 7 botched its TRIM implementation, which made everyone think its shitty eMMC was to blame. I held onto mine sort of as a joke for more than a decade.
I only just found out a month ago that the Android update caused its performance to tank, then put LineageOS on it, and was shocked to find that 13-year-old tablet was not only still usable but actually kinda good.
Yeah, mine did the same and later died completely, and only now I found that the LG was refunding the full price of phones or fixing them for free if they had this specific HW issue...
Can we get some unrelated coverage going for Google's persistent failure to fix their "show trending searches" toggle!? It doesn't work even on newer devices; there's no way to turn off trending search suggestions and search history at the same time. I just want to search, I don't need to know who got killed in Florida or what Trump said. It's there in the settings, but it doesn't work.
no more unlimited photos upload for you.
After Google Pixel 3 Google went really anti consumer in so many fronts that switching out of it was a no brainer and while you can be tempted by the latest shiny, their level of contempt for their core customers just keeps surfacing. They're too big to care and will keep doing it until people vote with their wallets en masse, for a sufficient amount of time.
Stuff like this is part of why I stick with iPhone. The Pixel 4A stopped receiving security updates just 3 years after release, and rather than being direct about what battery changes were made and providing reasonable pathways for people to replace batteries, this happens.
Apple does stupid and shady stuff too, it is certainly not perfect, but Google has always had a cultural attitude permeating their organization since the beginning that wanted to avoid doing any sort of real customer support, and preferenced boxing customers into something kafkaesque over doing the right thing.
For all the dumb shit Apple has done, I can walk into any Apple Store and talk to a person and get my problem resolved for a nominal fee (if any), their devices get 5+ years of security updates (usually closer to 7 years) and I upgrade before that ends anyway for other reasons (typically about every 4-5 years), in the interim my device "just works". I've effectively never had a problem with an Apple device since I've switched. I was an early adopter of Android, made my own customer ROMs and shared them on XDA Developers Forum, and otherwise was big on Android, but it became really clear to me very quickly that the app ecosystem is a mess (security and otherwise), the core OS has huge privacy and functional design issues, and Google as a steward and a first-party handset manufacturer is not the company you want to do business with.
This really sucks for everyone impacted, and I understand why many many people (including my wife) choose to stay on Android, but you should really give some thought to this. What do you /actually/ do every day with your phone, and what would better serve you? As someone who wants to spend as little time on my phone as possible, and I use it as a tool, that needs to actually work when I need it, and I travel often, iPhone is clearly a more reliable choice.
I just wish they had a smaller offering than the SE. (But seemingly this is the case for everyone nowadays.)
Hanging on to my 12 mini for that reason.
Apple literally did the exact same thing with limiting battery limits on iPhone 6 and got sued for it. C'mon.
