March 2024: The update that broke the Pixel’s back

 

I have been a Google fan for decades, since Gmail was first released about 20 years ago (April 2004). Still, the March 2024 update to the Pixel line was the last straw that opened my eyes and made me realize that Google is no longer a company worth supporting, and they certainly aren’t a company that cares about their customers. This post may come off as a hit piece, so I want to preface it by explaining my history with Google, as I was all in for quite some time. For several years, I was deeply invested in the Google ecosystem and loved it.

Back in 2004, I got my first Gmail account; it was revolutionary, and more importantly, it set me on the path of supporting Google. Three years later, the first iPhone was released, and I wanted one, but as a sophomore in high school, affording an iPhone was out of the question for me. However, when the Motorola Droid came out two years later, I was completely on board. I bought a Droid and have used Android ever since. Here’s a quick history of my Android usage:

- Droid

- Samsung Galaxy S Epic 4G Touch (terrible name)

- Samsung Tab 7.0 (their first tablet)

- Nook Color (with Android ROM)

- Galaxy S3

- Sony Xperia Z3

- Nexus 7 Tablet

- Galaxy S5

- LG V10

- LG G7 ThinQ (also a terrible name)

- Pixel 3A XL

- Pixel 5

- Pixel 7 Pro

- Samsung S24

I’ve used Android exclusively for years; in 2016, I bought the very first Google Home device and still have it today. When my kids were born, I placed Chromecasts in every room of my house to save my TV remotes from tiny hands. I used Nest cameras and security systems to protect my family, Nest smoke detectors to ensure my home’s safety, and a Nest Thermostat to manage my energy bills. I connected everything with Google Wi-Fi (which I strongly dislike now). When Google announced Stadia, I replaced all my Chromecasts with Chromecast Ultras. It’s safe to say that I was fully invested in the Google ecosystem, but the cracks started to show.

My first Google Home broke after an update; it updated, restarted, and never turned back on. Google RMAd it for me, so I had no significant worries there. My first major issue came up in October 2019. Google pushed a quarterly update that broke mDNS on the access points. Without getting too technical, mDNS is crucial for Chromecast to function (read my Chromecast VLAN post). This update caused casting to only work when the phone and Chromecast were on the same access point. However, Google Wi-Fi is a mesh network, which means devices roam between access points. This resulted in casting becoming a frustrating experience because you could never tell when which devices would be available to cast to. To sum it up: Google made an update for a hardware product they created, breaking the features they developed in another product. This issue would become a recurring theme. Google would fix this problem three months later (two months after Stadia launched, which suffered because of this), but the fix also broke device prioritization.

Fast forward to 2021, the news reported that Pixel users were facing issues when calling 911 on their phones. Google reportedly fixed this issue, but in November 2023, when my house was on fire, neither my wife’s Pixel 6A nor my 7 Pro could call 911, which makes me question how fixed this issue really is. 

These annoyances frustrated me, but I managed to tolerate them when they occurred; I could accept Stadia shutting down because of fractured leadership. I could handle Google Play Music being dissolved and transferred to YouTube Music in a barely functional state. I could cope with the demise of Google Podcasts, the poor hardware in Pixels, the heating issues, the Google Wi-Fi update problems, and even the 911 dialing malfunction.  

The last straw was the March 2024 update and Google’s “non-answer.”  

In March 2024, Pixel phones received an update that caused calls and notifications to fail. I would be sitting in my office, where I’m writing this using Samsung DeX, and suddenly receive a voicemail; no ringing, no notifications, just a voicemail, followed by a flood of text messages. This became a widespread issue that significantly impacted my wife. Her grandmother fell and was rushed to the hospital (ever wondered why my blog posts have been delayed for a while? Life has been busy), but my wife never received the call about it; Google decided her phone didn’t need to function as a phone.

We were finished; I traded my Pixels and got S24s, and it’s been great. I finally have a proper computer again, not a smartphone from the mid-2010s.

As I mentioned earlier, this may seem like a hit piece, but it’s not. Google’s development quality has declined, and I’ve witnessed the steady fall of a once-great software company. Google treats its customers as beta testers, subjecting us to untested software updates that disrupt the core functions of their hardware. There is no reason Google cannot ensure that their hardware and software work seamlessly together; instead, they push updates that are incompatible with their own hardware.  

Google, I enjoy beta testing, but not for critical core features. I didn’t opt-in to be a beta tester for notifications. I didn’t volunteer to beta test the capacity to call 911. The core functions of a phone should ALWAYS work. If you don’t value your hardware and software enough to quality-assure test it, then neither will I.