Google had introduced the Check for update button in the Android settings last year. When users tap the button, it should show if an update available for their phone which is the functionality you would expect from the button. However, the check for update button wasn’t really doing anything on Pixel and Nexus devices until now but now it is getting fixed and will start working in 2018.
Google intended by introducing the button to save people from waiting around for an update notification to appear. Back in September, a Google engineer Elliott Hughes posted on Google+ that the Check for update button had started working with the update being shown on the smartphone (if one was available) once the button got clicked. However, unfortunately, a Google Play Services update soon broke the feature again.
Now, according to Elliott Hughes, the button would work again on Pixel and Nexus devices after an update next year. Hughes posted an update to his original Google+ post to reveal the news. He also explained the cause of its failure as an API incompatibility between the System Update code and the Checkin code.
“UPDATE: a Google Play Services update after I posted this broke the feature again. An API incompatibility between the System Update code and the Checkin code, if you’re interested in the details: bugs involving two separate moving parts are often the sneakiest,” Hughes wrote on Google+ post.
So, it seems that the feature was actually working sometimes before an update brought a bug. So, the feature has been fixed internally now, as per Hughes. Further, his original post stated that the button should work for non-Google devices with the proper implementation. But, despite a fix for the feature, Hughes writes that non-Googlers will be able to use it by next year when testing gets completed.
“This was fixed again internally, but late enough that it will be next year before this works again for non-Googlers. Sorry about that. We will also be improving the testing process that allowed this incompatibility to slip through,” he added further.
Hughes also told that as long as Android device is running the latest Google Play services, there won’t be any other requirement to install any newer OTA update. The check for update button also triggers the faster rollout of updates. So, even if there are only 1 percent users who get the update, clicking on Check for update button will make that update available for your device.
