Google is rolling out the May Pixel Drop update, which contains a bunch of bug fixes and a warning for users who like to flash custom Android builds to their phones.
While April’s Pixel Drop gave us just the one big new addition (the ability to share your screen with Gemini), the May Pixel Drop has a big fat zero.
What the May Pixel Drop does feature is several noteworthy bug fixes – and a warning from Google.
May Pixel Drop fixes
The first of three fixes relates to a bug that degraded microphone recording quality in certain apps.
Another fix is for a Bluetooth pairing issue with certain smartwatches.
The third major fix is for secondary languages displayed in quick settings.
All pretty minor stuff, but potentially major if you’re suffering from one or more of these issues.
The May Pixel Update has started rolling out today, and will commence in phases over the next week. It’s coming to all Pixel phones from the Google Pixel 6 series through to the current Google Pixel 9 series.
Dominik Tomaszewski / Foundry
Google’s May Pixel Drop warning
There is one additional point to note about the May Pixel Drop. Google has issued “Special instructions for updating Pixel devices to the May 2025 monthly release”, specifically for those developers and enthusiasts who like to flash custom builds to their phones.
Apparently, the May update “contains a bootloader update that increments the anti-roll back version for the bootloader”.
This means that “After flashing the May 2025 update on these devices you won’t be able to flash and boot older Android 15 builds”.
What’s next for Android?
The drip of new Android 15 features is definitely drying up as we close in on Android 16, as you might expect. Google is holding its next big I/O event on May 20, at which its next mobile OS will be detailed in full.
Perhaps the most anticipated announcement at Google I/O will be the company’s new UI design language, Material 3 Expressive, which will touch both Android 16 and Google’s many apps.
Google itself leaked a deep dive into Material 3 Expressive’s design philosophy, which appears to be based around UI elements that feel right. Specifically, Google is “Making key actions stand out, and grouping like elements together”.
To reach this point, it carried out an intensive period of focus testing and iterating. We’re intrigued to see how it handles, especially now that Android 15 appears to be feature-complete.
