{"id":47219,"date":"2022-08-16T18:02:41","date_gmt":"2022-08-16T18:02:41","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/pixel-6-owners-who-upgrade-to-android-13-can-never-go-back\/"},"modified":"2022-08-16T18:02:41","modified_gmt":"2022-08-16T18:02:41","slug":"pixel-6-owners-who-upgrade-to-android-13-can-never-go-back","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/pixel-6-owners-who-upgrade-to-android-13-can-never-go-back\/","title":{"rendered":"Pixel 6 owners who upgrade to Android 13 can never go back"},"content":{"rendered":"<div itemprop=\"articleBody\">\n<figure class=\"intro-image intro-left\">\n  <figcaption class=\"caption\"\/>  <\/figure>\n<aside id=\"social-left\" class=\"social-left\" aria-label=\"Read the comments or share this article\">\n<\/aside>\n<p><!-- cache hit 625:single\/related:f15a142c11bfbe80ca49027c9821ffa5 --><!-- empty --><\/p>\n<p>Android 13 is slowly rolling out to Pixel phones, but here&#8217;s something to consider when that update message finally pops up on your device: You can never go back.<\/p>\n<p>Google is apparently changing the way Android updates are enforced on its latest devices.  A new warning message on the Pixel Factory Image page says that the Pixel 6, 6 Pro, and 6a can never go back to older versions of Android once they update:<\/p>\n<blockquote>\n<aside class=\"warning\"><strong>Warning:<\/strong> The Android 13 update for Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, and the Pixel 6a contains a bootloader update that increments the anti-roll back version.  After flashing an Android 13 build on these devices you will not be able to flash older Android 12 builds.<\/aside>\n<\/blockquote>\n<p>Anti-rollback was first introduced in Android 8 as a security feature.  Google can patch all the exploits it wants, but security fixes are meaningless if an attacker can just roll back a device to a previous version that&#8217;s full of security holes.  Rollback protection works by recording the newest installed version into tamper-evident storage that persists across device wipes, and now the system knows if it&#8217;s on an old version or not.  Previously, this feature would just show a warning message on boot (and it looks like that will still happen on the Pixel 5 and lower), but now, Google plainly says of the Pixel 6, &#8220;You will not be able to flash older Android 12 builds.&#8221;<\/p>\n<p>It&#8217;s not clear why only the Pixel 6 is affected by this change.  If you don&#8217;t count Android 12L, this is the Pixel 6&#8217;s first major OS update.  The three phones listed are also the only three phones that use Google&#8217;s first in-house SoC, the Google Tensor, so maybe the chip is flexing its muscles with new anti-downgrade capabilities.<\/p>\n<p>This isn&#8217;t a big deal for most consumers, but in previous Android versions, it was nice to have an escape hatch if Google came out with a particularly buggy first release.  If you frequently try out different software builds, this change will presumably mean that you can&#8217;t use any older third-party ROMs, either.<\/p>\n<\/p><\/div>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Android 13 is slowly rolling out to Pixel phones, but here&#8217;s something to consider when that update message finally pops up on your device: You can never go back. Google is apparently changing the way Android updates are enforced on its latest devices. A new warning message on the Pixel Factory Image page says that &hellip;<\/p>\n<p class=\"read-more\"> <a class=\"\" href=\"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/pixel-6-owners-who-upgrade-to-android-13-can-never-go-back\/\"> <span class=\"screen-reader-text\">Pixel 6 owners who upgrade to Android 13 can never go back<\/span> Read More &raquo;<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","spay_email":"","jetpack_publicize_message":"","jetpack_is_tweetstorm":false,"jetpack_publicize_feature_enabled":true},"categories":[4],"tags":[],"jetpack_publicize_connections":[],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack-related-posts":[{"id":47341,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/android-13-is-a-permanent-upgrade-on-pixel-6\/","url_meta":{"origin":47219,"position":0},"title":"Android 13 is a permanent upgrade on Pixel 6","date":"August 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Google released Android 13 today for Pixel devices, and it's rolling out now to devices. However, for Pixel 6 series owners, Android 13 is essentially a permanent upgrade, as there's no way to roll back to Android 12. Android updates are generally reversible, with the ability to install an older\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46562,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/you-cant-downgrade-from-android-13-on-googles-latest-pixel-phones\/","url_meta":{"origin":47219,"position":1},"title":"You can&#8217;t downgrade from Android 13 on Google&#8217;s latest Pixel phones","date":"August 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Android 13 was just released for Google's Pixel smartphones, and you can install it right away by going to your phone's settings and checking for an update. However, if you have a Google Pixel 6, Google Pixel 6 Pro, or a Google Pixel 6a, then be warned: trying to roll\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46446,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/googles-pixel-6-phones-cant-revert-from-android-13-back-to-android-12\/","url_meta":{"origin":47219,"position":2},"title":"Google&#8217;s Pixel 6 phones can&#8217;t revert from Android 13 back to Android 12","date":"August 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Android 13 is now rolling out to Google's Pixel phones, but if you want to flash the update onto your Pixel 6, Pixel 6 Pro, or Pixel 6A, with the company's custom Tensor chip, you won't be able to flash back to Android 12 because of a bootloader update, according\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":50680,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/what-to-do-after-flashing-android-13-on-pixel-6\/","url_meta":{"origin":47219,"position":3},"title":"What to do after flashing Android 13 on Pixel 6","date":"August 20, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"With Android 13, Google made it so that the Pixel 6, 6 Pro, and 6a cannot reinstall Android 12 in order to address a security issue. In addressing that vulnerability, another problem might arise, and Google has released instructions on how to avoid bricking your device if you flashed Android\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":47165,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/how-to-get-the-android-13-update-on-your-pixel-right-away\/","url_meta":{"origin":47219,"position":4},"title":"How to get the Android 13 update on your Pixel right away","date":"August 16, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"Google announced on August 15th, 2022, that it would begin rolling out the Android 13 update to its portfolio of Pixel devices. As is usual with Android updates, however, this doesn't mean that even if you have a qualifying Pixel device (a Pixel 4 or newer, basically), you'll immediately see\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]},{"id":46326,"url":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/unenroll-from-android-13-beta-w-o-wipe-after-stable\/","url_meta":{"origin":47219,"position":5},"title":"Unenroll from Android 13 Beta w\/o wipe after stable","date":"August 15, 2022","format":false,"excerpt":"The stable version of Android 13 starts rolling out to Pixel phones today, and those on the Android Beta Program can unenroll their devices after installing that update. Those on Android 13 Beta 4.1 will get a small OTA (31.96MB on Pixel 6 Pro) to the stable release. After downloading\u2026","rel":"","context":"In &quot;Technology&quot;","img":{"alt_text":"","src":"","width":0,"height":0},"classes":[]}],"fifu_image_url":"https:\/\/cdn.arstechnica.net\/wp-content\/uploads\/2022\/08\/listing-4-760x380.jpg","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47219"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=47219"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/47219\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=47219"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=47219"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/harchi90.com\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=47219"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}