Poll: Have you been experiencing bugs in Google's Android apps lately?

By Derrek Lee
published

Google Apps 1
Google Apps 1 (Image credit: Brandon Lee / Android Central)

Google makes plenty of great apps for smartphones, whether they're on iOS or the best Android phones ... that is, when they work. While no app developer is perfect and apps can often experience bugs, Google can't seem to get its apps and services together to just work. Something important always seems to break, which can render some apps and even phones useless.

A couple of Google-specific bugs have hit our radar this week, and we want to know if you've dealt with any of them or perhaps others.

One pesky bug that's plagued users for some time involves Google Messages refusing to connect to RCS, leaving users without any of the useful chat features like real-time typing indicators, read receipts, and high-resolution media. Instead, users find that the app will be stuck verifying or trying to connect to the service without actually doing so.

Another, possibly more annoying, bug has to do with the Google Clock app. It may not seem as significant, but many people rely on the app for their alarm, which is the very thing being affected. Many users claim that their alarms are no longer going off, even with the volume turned all the way up. Alarms often won't show as upcoming either and will just display as "missed" without actually ringing.

The problem appears only to affect the Google Clock Android app and not Google smart displays like the Nest Hub (2nd Gen).

Other bugs we've noticed recently include a strange one that eats up phone storage and another that causes Pixel 3 phones to be stuck in EDL Mode, but of course, there are likely plenty of bugs to be found on Google's Android apps.

Sound off below and let us know what problems you've been dealing with in any of Google's Android apps.

Derrek Lee
Derrek Lee
News Editor

Derrek is a long-time Nokia and LG fanboy who loves astronomy, videography, and sci-fi movies. When he's not working, he's most likely working out or smoldering at the camera.

21 Comments
  • Everything Google makes has bugs. Every day, I deal with Android Auto that doesn't work right, Google Nest that doesn't respond properly, Google TV that hangs. Everything! So tempted to try the fruity dark side soon.
  • Not much better on my iPhone 12 Pro Max.
  • Come on over. iOS is more stable than Android to me. iOS is my daily driver but I have several Android phones and Android and Google apps are more buggy than what Apple offers.
  • iOS has been buggier than ever the last couple years. I'm a former Apple OS beta tester, and it makes me wonder if they even know what they are doing now.
  • My Google Clock is not setting off the alarm. I thought it was something I had done until I read this article.
  • Google studio while in dark mode makes it impossible to see the check mark to approve messages.
  • I haven't noticed missing alarms, but several times they have been late - usually just a minute, but sometimes two. Once I had to switch to SMS messaging to get a connection, but that was a while back and the RCS functions seem to be working since then.
  • Yes reported one yesterday although on Android 12 Beta You Tube is bugged out massively.
    I even stated to goggle that I'm finding third party apps a far better quality all around.
    Let's hope that's changes with the Pixel Six and push to up the game. They shouldn't forget the eco system whilst improving hardware!!
  • YouTube music beta often won't open... It's a mess. I uninstalled it and have better success with regular YouTube music.
  • The only problem I have noticed is the RCS issue once in a blue moon.
  • Not related to Google but come on AC with those ******** full screen scrolling ad videos you got now. I know you need $$, but that's the quickest way to get hit by the ad blocker. Guess I'll need to add them to mobile too now.. 
  • Apple software is flawless.
  • It actually is. But Apple has other problems.
  • We are on iOS version 14.7.1. I don't even have time to go through the list of bugs that bought us here from 14.0.
  • If anything I'd say loss of memory/on-board storage. I noticed that when I updated some apps, they are now taking up way more storage then before. I have to clean the cached data way more often than before. I do have 128GB storage on my phone plus a Micro SD card as well, so it's not like I'm overly worried about the issue, but it was noticeable enough. I've also noticed that there were more frequent update requests for core Google apps than usual, stuff like the Clock, Calendar, Chrome, Maps, Search, Documents, Messages and a few others. And I don't mean one every other day, on few occasions I updated these apps only hours apart. The only other thing that felt out of place was the Google Play system update. I had so download it twice. I did the initial download, restarted the device as needed and the phone looked OK and up-to-date. The next day I turned the phone on again... the request for another download was there again. This was the first time I've had to download the Google Play system update twice in all the years I've been using an Android device. Not sure if this is relevant or connected with all the bugs mentioned in the article. Just some out of the ordinary stuff I've noticed on my device over the past few weeks.
  • A couple of news apps open only to stay on the update screen and then close. I've done the usual but still it persists. A little better if I clear the cache, but every time id a pain in the a**. Last week my battery went down 50% in 4 hours when it normally uses only 10 or 20%. That seems to have resolved now. Thought ot was just me and my redmi phone.
  • The poll is useless.
    I have a constant and ongoing battle with Maps - every now and then it will refuse to get a satellite lock and resort to some kind of "update every thirty seconds" nonsense without any voice nav. I've tried everything, resets, reinstalls, reversions, turning off 5G - nothing has helped. This has persisted on every phone I've had that has a Qualcomm 5G SoC and Android 11.
    Not had one for a week or so, maybe Google fixed it? 🤞
  • A more general statement. Everything has bugs. Thirty years ago a commonplace was "there are only bugs which have not been discovered". I think things have gotten better in the last 4 or 5 decades. With automated testing and validation there should not be any of the gross errors we used to see. And yet I still get notifications that a new bill has been received by my bank every month, regardless of whether or not the bill is actually greater than zero. Back in the day, payroll bugs were probably the most often reported problems. Some payrolls were simple rate times hours, and some involved relative performance percentages averaged over time to calculate incentive pay. Every paycheck got looked at by someone, either the employee, or his wife, or the shop steward or someone else who knew the rules inside out and would be happy to find an error that shorted someone a dime. If you had a thousands of employees, the chances of an error occurring went up, as did the chance that it would be noticed. Now there are millions of users of Android and other software products. Google apps come standard on phones and for many what you get for free is good enough. You can spend years getting out a "bug-free" product, or you can let a million not quite beta testers find the really tricky bugs for you. The more people report a problem the more likely it will be found, especially if the problem is a particular combination of settings and apps running on the phone. There are really bad releases of things. Some will be so bad they get pulled back. For others there is no going back, and those will lose customers. Most of the time there is competition so you have a choice. Sadly, not everything everywhere has competition, or you run out of choices. I have had both situations, and you just have to live with what you cannot change. Not happy, but I can't build a telcomm or a bank or an internet provider so I make do with what I have. Or do without. Report bugs, by all means. Change phones or software by all means. But don't JUST whine about it.
  • Surprisingly, I have not noticed any of my Google apps acting up lately.
  • None of these, but Pixel 3XL has started with a "System UI not responding" which comes at the same time as a wifi drop. Rebooting gets me back in business but the problem comes back in a day or two. If I'm using a dark screen, I also see a pop up message that flashes too quick to read but looks like the System UI message shape.
  • Gmail: occasionally opening the app gets stuck on a single email and the rest of the UI is missing, requiring a force quit and restart. Clock: experienced a random missed alarm maybe 2 times in the past year? Android Auto: car touch controls don't respond unless the phone is fully unlocked and the phone's screen is on, which means I have to wake & unlock my phone before every interaction with my car's screen while using AA. When the touch controls are working, there's about a 20% chance they won't register or respond and require multiple taps. They worked perfectly fine before I updated to Android 10 (OnePlus 6T and 8T) in the same car, same screen. RCS: same spotty support in most messages. Sometimes it uses RCS, other times it's SMS with no rhyme or reason. YouTube: touch response on picture-in-picture mode is spotty at best and makes it difficult to return to the app