What Happens If You Skip The Android 17 Update?

Software updates have become as routine as a check-up at the dentist or taking your car for an oil change. They’re also prone to bring bugs and downright awful changes sometimes. For example, the recent Android 17 update has problems that need to be fixed, such as eSIM functionality, GPU performance, and other issues. As such, some users may be hesitant to accept the update on their phone, but what exactly could happen if you decide to skip out on the Android 17 update?

If your device is still set to receive Android OS upgrades, you should know first and foremost that you’ll be passing up new tools, performance upgrades, and security patches. Skipping an update also prevents you from receiving future updates, until it is installed. But if you’re really insistent on the matter, then in most cases, you can indefinitely delay installing the update so long as you adjust your phone’s setting or turn internet access off. In some cases, if your phone is known to have certain issues, it might actually be forced to install an update automatically.

When Google releases a new version of Android, it is typically able to send these over the air updates out to supported Pixel phones at the very same instant. Other phone makers, like Samsung and Motorola, may take more time to customize the feature package, while older phones from third-party OEMs may have to wait months to receive an upgrade after the newest phones do. The easiest way to avoid automatic updates is to turn off automatic downloads in the phone’s settings.  You might also want to check the “System Update” section of your device settings to see if updates can be downloaded or even installed while your device is connected to Wi-Fi during the overnight hours.

There are rare cases when a software update automatically installs itself onto a device, such as if it is controlled under enterprise fleet management or if it becomes unsafe to use. The latter could be triggered by a product recall or a zero-day security vulnerability that needs to be patched. If you want to totally eliminate these types of updates, your best bet is just to turn off the phone’s internet access. That being said, there’s no way to prevent your phone from automatically checking for and notifying you when an update is ready to download. You can reduce the visibility of these notifications through a series of toggles; to access them, open the notification shade, pull left on the notification card to reveal a settings or options button and tap it.

Android updates aren’t as splashy as they were when the platform was in its infancy, but later bumps, including Android 17, still have underrated features that might surprise people. Screen Reactions is probably the most notable in this bag of tricks, letting you chromakey yourself directly onto whatever content that’s on your phone as you talk about it. No need to open up Instagram, Snapchat, or TikTok to create a clip that can go out on all of those apps.

Besides the big billboard features, there are often very minor changes sprinkled all across the operating system that could mean a button gets relocated, a prompt window gets removed, or new emojis are added. Needless to say, there are security patches in every update, so if you miss out on those, you might be leaving yourself open to getting hacked. And if you opt not to install an update, you are also opting out of installing future updates as changes made in those OTAs may be contingent on ones that were made previously.