The Pixel 6 Pro is my daily driver and I still enjoy using the device. Sure, I wish it had Face Unlock and Photo Unblur and it would be great if the 5000mAh battery lasted longer. And to make matters worse, a recent update to the Google app helped to drain the battery on both Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series models. Additionally, the phones were getting so hot that you could have put one on a table screen side down and fried an egg on the rear panel. I’m thinking that this might be called the “Reverse Pixel egg fry” feature in the future.
Google has spoken with 9to5Google and revealed that the issues are due to a “backend change” involving the Google app. This has caused the battery to drain on a “subset of Android devices” which is another way to say that only a small number of Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 models were affected. While some felt that the May Android update might have been the culprit, when Google itself pins the blame on the Google app, there is no reason to think that the company is wrong.
But the good news is that no update needs to be downloaded in order to fix the problem which cut the battery life of some Pixel 6 and Pixel 7 series handsets in half. In half! Google says that as soon as it became aware of the issue it issued a server-side update. As a result, “…impacted users should see their devices return to normal behavior immediately. This fix does not require an app update.”
No this egg was not fried on the back of a Pixel 7 Pro
Google needs to work on optimizing the battery on the upcoming Pixel 8 series, especially with the Pixel 8 Pro. Samsung has greatly improved the battery life of its top-of-the-line Galaxy S23 Ultra compared to the Galaxy S22 Ultra, and the iPhone 14 Pro Max remains the battery leader among flagship handsets. Now the ball is in Google’s court and perhaps Google can even come up with something to extend battery life on its 2021 and 2022 high-end Pixel models.
For now, those Pixel users complaining about the Google app draining their batteries and making their phones way too hot to the touch can sit back, do nothing, and hope that Google’s server-side update fixed these issues.
