A evices
T
here are plenty of reasons to be excited about
the arrival of Android 5.0 Lollipop: a revamped
look, improved security features, lockscreen
notifi cations, a guest user mode, better battery
management, and so on. Yet the shine of Google’s
newest mobile operating system has been more
than a little tarnished by persistent problems with
the rollout of the software – unforeseen delays,
major bugs, bricked devices and user complaints
have all been causing headaches for Google and the
company’s Android engineers.
Built-in bugs
Android 5.0 was offi cially launched the moment
the Nexus 9 tablet went on sale on 3 November,
with owners of older Nexus devices expecting to
get their updates very shortly afterwards.
However, issues with a severe battery drain bug
meant that Google had to wait a couple of
weeks before pushing out the new software. The
problems didn’t stop once the software was
fi nally out in the wild either, with Nexus 5
phones particularly prone to errors: problems
with Wi-Fi connectivity, the new fl ashlight feature
crashing phone cameras, stuttering performance
and the disappearance of apps built with Adobe
Air have all been reported on online forums, in
Twitter feeds and via various media outlets. The
Adobe Air bug – where apps written with Adobe’s
software suddenly disappear or starting throwing
up error messages – is particularly mystifying,
and Adobe has already confi rmed in a blog post
that it is looking into the issue with Google’s
help.
Those users with a second-generation 2013
Nexus 7 tablet have experienced a bug where
video playback fails across all apps, and the issue
has appeared on devices that have received an
over-the-air update as well as ones that have
been fl ashed manually. Google, meanwhile, has
stayed mostly silent on the issues plaguing
Lollipop, though it would be fair to assume that
coders inside the company are busy trying to
address the teething problems that Android 5.
has so far experienced. In a number of short
statements, the tech giant has indicated that it’s
“looking into” the issues that are being reported.
“I regret downloading the update,” wrote one
disgruntled user in the offi cial Android support
forums. “My Nexus 7 is laggy, restarts and
crashes randomly, takes ages to navigate or open
THE
big
STORY
Has Android 5.0’s
‘unstable’ rollout
soured Lollipop?
Google’s Lollipop
problem
BATTERY
DRAIN
VIDEO
PLAYBACK
BUGS
SEVERED
WI-FI
CONNECTION
ROLLOUT
DELAYED BY
WEEKS
DISAPPEARING
ADOBE APPS
!