There is a lag that is affecting users of the Pixel 10 series. Dating back to last year’s Pixel 9 line, and continuing with this year’s
Pixel 10 series, the speaker button on the Google Phone app will lag or fail to respond to touch during phone calls. On Google’s community support page, a Pixel 10 Pro XL user wrote that there are times when it takes several taps of the button before the sound switches from the Pixel’s internal speaker to the external speaker. This lag can last as long as two seconds.
Pixel 9 and Pixel 10 series handsets have issues with the speaker button in the Google Phone app
As an example, let’s say you’re talking to someone on the phone using the speakerphone and you come to a point in the conversation that you would prefer everyone around you not hear what is being said by the person you’re speaking to. So, you tap the speaker button to move the call to the internal speaker, but it doesn’t work, or there is a lag, and the part of the conversation you wanted to be private is heard by everyone around your phone. The issue appears whether the phone is running the stable Android 16 build or the just released Android 16 QPR2 Beta 3.2 update.
This bug apparently started last May when a Pixel 9 Pro user noted that tapping the speaker icon no longer activated the external speaker instantly after the button was pressed. Instead, there was a “noticeable lag” after the button was pressed. In September, a Pixel 10 Pro XL user wrote on social media, “If I am in a call with the phone application full screen, the button to switch to speaker phone sometimes works. I have to keep clicking it like crazy to get it to turn on and off; all other buttons work without issue. If I click the speaker phone button in the notification (as opposed to the button in the phone app), it works all the time.”
On the Issue Tracker, Google says it will not fix the feature
That last observation is important because it suggests that the latest version of the Google Phones app is responsible. Additionally, some have reported that when they dropped back to an older version of the app, the performance of the speaker button returned to normal. While you might think that this issue is no big deal, it really is, especially since Google knows about the problem but has yet to fix it.
As a Redditor with the username cliffr39 wrote, “I just want the speakerphone icon to actually work right when I press it at the start of a phone call. The most annoying bug on this Pixel 10 Pro XL since it launched and hasn’t been fixed yet.” It doesn’t seem that Google intends on fixing this either. While the problem reached the Issue Tracker in August, a final resolution was posted on October 20th when Google wrote “Status: Won’t Fix (Infeasible).”
The Issue Tracker also says, “We’re closing this issue due to not having enough actionable information. If you continue to have the same issue, please file a new issue and add the relevant information along with a reference link to the earlier issue.” With this in mind, there seems to be just one way to avoid the problem and that is to use the toggle on the notification instead of the button on the Google Phone app. Speaking of which, another option would be to avoid the Google Phone app altogether.
Will Google develop a fix for this bug?
For those who rely on using the speakerphone on their Pixel 9 or Pixel 10 series handset, Google’s decision not to fix the issue because it is too difficult to do so is not going to sit well with users who paid for a flagship phone that has a serious problem with an oft-used feature that Google doesn’t appear to plan on fixing at this point. Hopefully a miracle occurs and Google does develop a fix for this issue in the near future.
