I currently have a Samsung Galaxy Note9, which has been fantastic so far due to the long battery life, excellent camera and Android Auto. The other day my phone started warning me that it was going to upgrade, and I couldn’t prevent it only delay it. It was telling me how great the new Android 9 was compared to Android 8 and then one night it upgraded while I was asleep. Since then I’ve had several problems.

Major Problem #1: Call Recording

The first major problem I noticed was that my automatic call recording app no longer worked. On their main support page I found out that Android 9 no longer allows 3rd party call recording! This was a key feature that I used to take notes while driving, knowing that I could just listen to the call later so that I wouldn’t have to stop on the highway just to take notes during calls. Now I’m going to have to use a 3rd party call recording company and route all my calls through them so that I can have this functionality back!

Problem #2: Android Auto maps bug

The next thing I noticed was that Google Maps in Android Auto no longer works properly in night mode. It used to swap to dark mode at sunset and now it no longer does, leaving a BRIGHT light on my dashboard from the screen. I had to unplug the phone and forego the navigation it was so blinding.

Problem #3: Pandora bugs

The latest big problem I have is that while listening to Pandora, every other song only plays for 10s or less and then skips! While the benefit of this is now that commercials can last no longer than 10 seconds because of the error, skipping over every other song is quite annoying.

Conclusion: Users are beta testers

It seems that Google is now using everyone as beta testers for their software now. I haven’t explored that much on Android 9 and I have already found several major problems with key pieces of software. I am considering finding another phone that is version-locked to Android 8 so that I can have these features back!