Several owners of Google’s Pixel 2 series devices have, as of January 18, begun taking to Internet forums to try and collectively work out the purpose of an official OTA software update hitting some devices. That’s because not only is the update unusually timed. It was also not previously announced by Google and didn’t provide any details when it arrived. Moreover, the build number – OPM2.171019.016 – does not match up with anything found in the company’s repositories. Some users suspect it contains bug fixes, but there also doesn’t appear to be any change to the devices’ Android Security Patch Level either. Ordinarily, Pixel owners get one update near the beginning of the month which contains bug fixes and a security update, sometimes with other enhancements or features added into the mix. That particular update for January was already rolled out, leaving pretty much everybody scratching their heads.
Setting aside the odd timing of the update and complete lack of official details, users report that the update was around 41.8MB in size. That’s relatively small for a feature update but, according to some of the responses from those who claim to have received the update, new features can’t be ruled out entirely. In fact, unless those users are mistaken, the update seems to have opened up two new music-related features or at very least fixed bugs associated with those features. First, users report that Google Assistant now has the ability to shuffle play their music library through Google Home. That’s a feature which was not previously available. Beyond that, users claim that Google Assistant can now play locally-stored music on the updated devices. That’s a feature which had stopped working prior to the update, users claim. Of course, that also leaves intact the ability to stream from the usual sources such as Google Play Music or YouTube.
While the full extent of the update has yet to be determined and Google has not responded to inquiries, users also report that some at least a few bugs have still not been fixed. For example, at least one user says that a “multi-touch” bug is still there, following the update, while another user reports that an SMS failure bug and issues related to audio capture on the Google Pixel 2 XL also remain. Unfortunately, until Google decides to provide some details about what exactly is going on, there’s really no way to know for sure.