Some of you might be aware that Google released the latest iteration of its mobile platform yesterday. What was previously known as Android P was officially released to the public as Android 9 Pie. The update has since been released for Google’s Pixel smartphones and Essential has rolled it out for the Essential Phone as well. The update brings many new features and also fixes a Wear OS (Android Wear) phone call bug that has been irking users for 10 months.
The bug was first reported through Google’s issue tracker last last year. Users reported that Bluetooth call audio was just plain bad. It has been 10 months since this bug was first reported and the fix has been released with Android 9 Pie.
Users would experience the bug when moving the call audio between the smartphone and a smartwatch with a speaker. Tapping on the “Play phone voice call on watch” would cause the audio to disappear for up to 15 seconds in any app that was able to route call audio over Bluetooth. It would even be experienced when the call wasn’t switched over to the watch.
Users had no option but to disable the call audio feature in Wear OS for 10 months just so they could use their phones. It has only now been confirmed that the bug has been fixed with Android 9 Pie. That’s still not going to solve the problem for most customers since this update hasn’t been released by major OEMs like Samsung, Xiaomi, Huawei, and others. It probably won’t be for at least a couple of months.
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