[OliveMate]

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/

[chasil]

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:

https://lineageos.org/

[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]

https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk/releases/tag/v28.1

https://magiskmanager.com/

https://github.com/VR-25/acc/releases/tag/v2023.10.16

[kees99]

Problem with pretty much every modern battery-powered device is that battery is flogged to near death at every charge. From @marcan's mastodon post, Pixel 4a's battery is charged to 4.45V:

  qcom,max-voltage-uv = <0x43e6d0>;

This is completely insane, and it's a small miracle that this phone didn't follow Note7's fate.

As for charge limiting... limit at 80% is an okay workaround (certainly better than no limit at all!), but it's far from perfect. Namely, with this approach, charge controller chip doesn't know cut-off is coming, and will shove several amperes into the battery until last second, thus overshooting safe voltage level. This wears the battery (less so than with no limit, but still more than necessary).

Battery charging limiting should be done by voltage: this way, controller chip knows where to stop, so it makes soft taper-off at the end of charge cycle, by gradually nudging current down to stay within voltage envelope.

Charging profile could be observed from a rooted adb console:

  grep NOW <$(find /sys/devices/platform \
  | grep battery/uevent$ | head -1)

(depending on phone model and firmware, some tweaking might be required to find/grep to get the right battery status file)

[gruez]

>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.

[tlamponi]

  > https://magiskmanager.com/

WARNING: this is not the official site for Magisk [0], keep to the actual GitHub hosted repo and builds [1].

[0]: https://www.xda-developers.com/psa-magiskmanager-com-not-off...

[1]: https://github.com/topjohnwu/Magisk

[beretguy]

> 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.

[sharpshadow]

That defeats the whole point of a Pixel, the camera app.

[burningChrome]

>>> 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.

[aquasync]

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?).

[conaclos]

> 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?

[wanderingmind]

Why go all through that pain when graphene OS gives you a straightforward install?

[drowsspa]

And then you can't access bank or government apps anymore... I used to root my phone, it's not worth it anymore

[1vuio0pswjnm7]

"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.

[pxmpxm]

> 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.

[mathstuf]

> 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.

[Suppafly]

>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.

[Rastonbury]

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.

[KORraN]

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.

[BoorishBears]

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.

[ChoGGi]

The Dev options have a setting to not apply updates on reboot. I'm hoping that'll work if I forget.

[QuantumGood]

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.

[kllrnohj]

> 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.

[scarface_74]

Apple did not “do this”. Apple ole didn’t ruin a perfectly good phone with an update. The throttling they did on phones with old batteries kept them from shutting off completely.

[kristopolous]

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

[lynndotpy]

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 :(

[m463]

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

https://www.asktog.com/

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.

[brailsafe]

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.

[silon42]

Also the OS is copying Apple, making it worse.

[nullc]

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hotelling%27s_law

[schroeding]

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.

[hnburnsy]

>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...

[Gee101]

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.

[lupire]

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.

[ikiris]

Your incredulity is misplaced. They’ve admitted in depositions this is a basis for decision making like this.

[computehyper]

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

[pxoe]

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.)