Google Releases Android 14 Beta 5.1 to Fix Bugs Ahead of Stable Release

Android 14 will soon be available! We're up to Beta 5 currently, which was issued after the initial developer peek in February. Google believes Beta 5 to be a nearly final product and has simply made a few last-minute fixes in Beta 5.1.

As the minor increment suggests, the release of Android 14 Beta 5.1 is mainly about bug fixes. The final bugs, hopefully. I'm hoping the final release won't take too long. Given how difficult the Android 14 beta experience has been thus far, we're hoping, but we wouldn't bet on anything just yet.

Four fixes are included in the release's public changelog, while more might have been made discreetly behind the scenes.

The bugs that have been eliminated are listed below: The "feather-styled" live wallpaper has also been temporarily disabled, resolving a performance issue it was causing. These issues included one that prevented the system from detecting a SIM card if Fixed Dialing Number features were enabled, one that caused connectivity problems for devices with carriers using 5G standalone mode, one that caused some devices to display a blank home screen after unlocking, and one that caused connectivity interruptions for devices with those carriers.

Google guarantees that once the other underlying problems are resolved, the problematic live wallpaper will be enabled once more. 5.2 Beta, then, is it? All we can do is wait and see.

The Pixel 4a 5G, Pixel 5 series, Pixel 6 series, Pixel 7 series, Pixel Fold, and Pixel Tablet may all access the update right now via an over-the-air (OTA) patch.