Welcome to Ask Jerry, where we answer all your questions about the smart things in your life. I’m Jerry and I’ve worked in technology for most of my life. I have a background in engineering and research and development and have been covering Android and Google for the past 15 years.
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Ask Jerry is a column where we answer your burning questions about Android and tech, with help from longtime Android Central editor Jerry Hildenbrand.
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Why does Google release new software so slowly?
(Image source: Android Central)
Carlos asks:
Why is Google releasing monthly updates and new features so slowly?[ly]Every time I read about a Pixel drop I have to wait for it and I want to know why.
Thank you for all your efforts!
Hi Carlos! I know what you’re feeling. This is a very frustrating thing that many people (including me) experience with frustration every time Google rolls out something new or unusual for the smartphones we get our hands on. Also, this is nothing new and no matter how much we hate it, there are really good reasons why Google does it this way.
I always put the answer first so no one has to read beyond the first few paragraphs, and in this case the answer is really simple.
Major Microsoft Windows outage disrupts services worldwide
This is what happens when you send an update to everyone at the same time.
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
I was preparing this article when the Microsoft outage happened last Friday, and the timing couldn’t have been better. I want to be clear that Microsoft had absolutely nothing to do with the crash of thousands of Windows Servers on Friday morning, and the update that broke everything came from a third-party software vendor called CrowdStrike, who provides Windows Server security services. In the end, it didn’t matter because it was one bad update that got pushed out to everyone at once and caused global chaos.
Google tries to prevent this from happening by gradually rolling out software changes and monitoring how they affect users who receive them.
This has been the case from the beginning. In 2014, Google executive Dan Morrill, one of the most well-known Android developers and part of Google’s original Android team, explained why it’s being done and how it’s being done:
“The rollout is done in stages. We typically start with 1% of devices for about 24-48 hours. We monitor return rates, device check-ins, error reports (if any) and only after we’ve made sure there are no issues, we roll it out further. We then typically roll it out to 25%, 50%, 100% over the next 1-2 weeks.”
Google knows that no matter how much it tests new software, there’s a chance that something will break when it’s released to everyone with an Android phone, and while Pixel phones (in this case) aren’t that popular, many of the changes in those monthly updates are also baked into Android itself, meaning they’re likely to apply to nearly every phone in the world.
By slowly rolling out a change and seeing if it breaks anything, damage is minimized. There are many examples of software deployments that have failed. In most cases, the software was quickly recalled, whatever was causing the problem was fixed, tested, and then slowly rolled out to make sure it worked.
(Image credit: Nicholas Sutrich / Android Central)
This is standard practice at Google, Apple, Samsung, and pretty much every company that makes phones and tablets: the software is developed and tested in-house, then sent to a limited number of beta testers, and once everything seems OK, it’s sent out slowly to measure how it performs.
This is also why we want to emphasize that most people should not install beta software on devices they want to use – something will break, and that’s an important part of this process.
Waiting for something you want to try can be frustrating, especially when it’s heavily promoted by Google and websites like Android Central, but it’s a lot less frustrating than having your phone stuck. Let’s hope Google doesn’t stop releasing new software at a slow clip.