Developer Previews are often rife with bugs and issues preventing them from being everyday use software. Beta’s are usually a lot more stable. It seems with Android 11 Beta the stability and compatibility has regressed in on important area — Google Pay.
In early Developer Previews for Android 11 Google Pay was broken but by the time Developer Preview 4 came around it was fixed. Now with the first Beta Google pay is broken again according to 9to5Google. For Google Pay to work all security features on the device must align and be in place correctly. It seems that for the Beta someone forgot to tick a box.
9to5Google tested it out and the verification process failed each time they attempted to set up a payment card within Google Pay. Interestingly they also found that a device that had already been setup for Google Pay before receiving an OTA update over the top worked for a couple of hours before they received a notification stating that the software no longer supported Google Pay — Did Google pull the plug on Google Pay support for a reason?
This feature makes it incredibly difficult to test out the new power menu which includes your Google Wallet and easy, fast access to your cards for quick payment in store. I would expect Google to rollout a fix fairly quick smart for this — assuming it is an easy fix — considering that the new power menu is one of the big ticketed items in the Android 11 Beta.
Of course Beta software is still Beta software and not stable software for a reason. Expect some bugs and issues in everyday use but never did we expect them to break and make useless one of the big features they brought to the new Android 11 Beta — especially when it was one of the few things they specifically mentioned in their announcement blog post.
Until a fix arrives, if you use Google Pay it may be a good idea to avoid the Android 11 Beta at this stage.
