C. Scott Brown / Android Authority
TL;DR
- Android 15 beta 4.2 is now available for the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL. The Pixel 9 Pro and 9 Pro Fold will likely get their versions closer to their in-store availability date.
- The Pixel 9 series shipped with Android 14, the first time that a mainline Pixel shipped with last year’s OS version.
- With Android 15 beta 4.2 available for these phones, we expect the stable version of the OS to land soon.
When Google took the wraps off the Pixel 9 series, something was amiss: the phones shipped with Android 14 out of the box, not the expected Android 15. This represents the first time ever that a mainline Pixel phone shipped with the previous year’s Android version.
To make matters even more confusing, early reviewers couldn’t even install the latest Android 15 beta because it was unavailable for those phones. Today, though, Google is partially rectifying this by rolling out Android 15 beta 4.2 to the two currently available phones in the Pixel 9 series: the Pixel 9 and Pixel 9 Pro XL. The Pixel 9 Pro and Pixel 9 Pro Fold are left out due to not yet being available to consumers.
Although it’s too early to say for certain, it is unlikely that there’s anything new in this release of Android 15 as compared to the release many folks have been using for weeks now on Pixel 8 and earlier phones. However, considering the Pixel 9 series launched with Android 14, the availability of Android 15 beta is certainly welcome.
Given that we’re so late in the game for the beta rollouts of Android 15, we expect to see it go stable quite soon. It could be this month, or it could be in September, but the latest it could be is almost certainly October. In the meantime, if you absolutely don’t want Android 14 on your shiny new Pixel 9, you have the option to go beta now.
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