Bad vibes? Google may have screwed up haptics in the new Pixel Drop update

The unexpected appearance of notification cooldown, along with smaller changes to haptics globally, could be responsible for the complaints. Maybe this is working as intended and Pixel owners are just caught off guard; or maybe Google broke something. It wouldn’t be the first time.

The unexpected appearance of Notification Cooldown in the update might have something to do with the reports—it’s on by default.

Credit:
Ryan Whitwam

In 2022, Google released an update that weakened haptic feedback on the Pixel 6, making it so soft that people were missing calls. Google released a fix for the problem a few weeks later. If there’s something wrong with the new Pixel Drop, it’s a more subtle problem. People can’t even necessarily explain how it’s different, but most seem to agree that it is.

After testing several Pixel phones both before and after the update, there may be some truth to the complaints. The length and intensity of haptic notification feedback feel different on a Pixel 9 Pro XL post-update, but our Pixel 9 Pro feels the same after installing the Pixel Drop. The different models may simply have been tuned differently in the update, or there could be a bug involved. We’ve reached out to Google to ask about this possible issue and will update this article if we hear anything useful.