Overnight Google has officially released the first Android 9.0 Pie update into the wild, with new system images and OTA (over the air) upgrade files now available to owners of Google Pixel devices.
Owners of the original Pixel or Pixel XL, as well as the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL can download the September 2018 full system images (as well as the OTA files for incremental update) from the Android Developers site.
In the past, Google recommended the full system image as the safest way to upgrade, but these days (and for some time, let’s be honest) the OTA upgrade is actually much easier, and is the Google recommended approach. In that spirit, here’s the OTA files for your device:
- Pixel 2 XL – https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/taimen-ota-ppr2.180905.005-6f1f7ef7.zip
- Pixel 2 – https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/walleye-ota-ppr2.180905.005-d21ce55a.zip
- Pixel XL – https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/marlin-ota-ppr2.180905.006-809f6887.zip
- Pixel – https://dl.google.com/dl/android/aosp/sailfish-ota-ppr2.180905.006-18857afc.zip
Of course, you could just wait for these updates to arrive on your phone in the coming days over the airwaves, but not everyone is patient!
What’s new in these builds? A Bluetooth car audio fix is one, as well as the other updates rolled into the September 2018 security and vulnerability updates. The highlights are improvement in battery charge for retail mode (seems a bit redundant, given the Pixel 2 XL will probably not be on retail displays for much longer…), improved software version reporting, and the car audio patch. Notably, the quick charging bug doesn’t appear to have been addressed.
For those who like detail, the security bulletin can be read in full over at the Android source website.
