Google teases Q4 update with Android 17 QPR2 Beta 1 release

Lots of Android users are still waiting to get their first taste of Android 17, but for Pixel owners who have joined Google’s testing community, we are already looking far out into the future. QPR1 builds like Android 17 QPR1 Beta 7 from last week have been giving us an early peek at the upcoming September Feature Drop, and now Google is already getting started on what’s next, with the release of Android 17 QPR2 Beta 1.

As Google’s Mishaal Rahman confirms over on X, this Beta represents the software we’ll ultimately see arrive as Google’s 2026 Q4 Android release. But while QPR1 supported devices from the Pixel 6 on up, QPR2 moves the needle forward and begins its support with the Pixel 6a — the original Pixel 6 and Pixel 6 Pro are no longer included. Considering both these phones hit their 5-year birthdays this October, that’s not unexpected, but still sad to see.

Google starts off with a list of some of the larger bugfixes it’s deploying with this build:

• Bluetooth re-pairing fails silently following a remote bond loss. (Issue #412524057)
• Media player controls briefly flashed on the lock screen upon waking the device despite the app’s notifications being disabled. (Issue #484607701)
• A system crash causing Pixel devices to unexpectedly reboot when invoking Gemini. (Issue #505750489)
• Initiating a drag-and-drop gesture with multiple fingers caused the source application to stop receiving subsequent touch events. (Issue #516836306)
• Notifications randomly became invisible in the notification shade until a system restart. (Issue #526139207, Issue #522657034)
• ML-DSA key generation fails with an exception when using the “NONE” string digest instead of the class constant. (Issue #525612735)
• An issue in AccessibilityNodeInfo.toString() where window bounds were incorrectly logged using screen bounds, which caused misleading accessibility debugging data. (Issue #520428442)
• Window-level UI blur effects failed to render and the “Allow window-level blurs” developer toggle reset after rebooting. (Issue #527376569)

If you’re interested in joining Google’s test squad, you can register your Pixel phone at the Android Beta Program sign-up page. And if you’re already part of it, you’ll soon be seeing your update notification arrive.

Critically, though, this also marks a point when a tester can make a clean exit from the program if they want to, and not lose their device’s data in the process. If you’ve been testing up to now but wish to get back on the stable track, you can simply choose not to install QPR2 Beta 1, opt out of the Beta Program, and wait for the stable September Feature Drop to arrive in a couple months.