What you need to know
- Google announced that Android 17 QPR1 Beta 6 will roll out to enrolled Pixel testers a week after Beta 5 drops.
- The patch is lighter and focuses primarily on fixing issues that Pixel testers have been reporting on the Issue Tracker.
- Beta 5 included a significant number of fixes for Pixel users, such as fixes for disappearing widgets, the game panel, and more.
The upcoming beta version of Android 17’s first quarterly update has cleared a major development hurdle. Here you’ll find everything Pixel testers can expect to find.
Google announced that Android 17 QPR1 Beta 6 is now rolling out to enrolled Pixel users. As vCP31.260618.005 rolls out to Pixel 6 and new phones, Google says Beta 6 means the quarterly update has reached platform stability. This is a key milestone as Google looks to begin preparations for a broader (stable) launch of phones. This latest beta version is a little lighter. Google only seems to have a few bugs that it is looking to fix before further testing.
The company claims it is implementing a visual bug by “swiping quickly through the media carousel.” Google says users experienced this in the Quick Settings layout and settings icons. Another fix is the result of several reports in three Issue Tracker threads after Beta 5. Pressing the volume buttons was reportedly producing an unwanted result in the Clock app.
The rest of the changelog is as follows:
- Users were unable to select multiple languages from spell checker
- An issue in WindowManagerGlobal that caused application crashes
- Enabling the Wi-Fi hotspot displays a generic default SSID instead of the user’s saved custom name.
The work continues
Android Central’s opinion
I wonder if Google is moving too fast. There are still many pressing issues affecting users with Android 17 and other glaring issues for Pixels in general. Google has acknowledged some, but others have been going on for months without clear solution. I would hate to see things get any more out of control than they are.
Beta 6 has surprised Pixel testers. It’s only been a week since QPR1 Beta 5 and that patch were released took a significant number of bug fixes. The latest beta implemented a fix for an Android 17 issue that stable Pixel users encountered: disappearing widgets. So while Google has acknowledged and apparently already resolved this issue, Pixel users still have to wait a bit before it hits their phones (unless they’re in beta). On the other hand, Google implemented fixes for Game Dashboard, a screen freeze with Always-On Display and more.
Android 17 QPR1 hitting platform stability in early July should probably come as no surprise. Google launched Android 16 QPR2 Beta 1 in August last year, shortly after the launch of the Pixel 10. Google has been speeding up its development process and trying to fix bugs at the same time. There is a chance we will see something similar this year as well.
