Just this morning, your boy was being his usual smarmy self on Twitter by taking subtweety shots at Google and their Pixel phones’ “Check for update” button, because it still doesn’t work after one of their engineers told us a couple of times now that it probably should. The timing there is now pretty funny, as a Google Play Services update began rolling out today that appears to activate that button, just like we were told it would. Go, me!

According to a reddit thread, a number of users have been able to update to Google Play Services 12.2.09 on their Pixel 2 (Pixel 2 XL and original Pixels possibly too) devices, head into Settings>System>System update>Check for update, and pull the latest February security patch. Some tried hitting the button before updating and received no update, but did immediately after grabbing the new version.

The trick here seems to be to get into the Google Play Services beta track, which you can do by opening this link on your phone, scrolling to the bottom of the app’s listing, and joining the beta. Once you do that, you should receive an update into Google Play Services (beta). If you get the 12.2.09 update, then feel free to jump into settings and check for the update. If you don’t, and instead sit on 11.9.76 (like me), the update button still won’t work.

I wish I could 100% confirm to you that Google Play Services v12 is our hero, but I’m stuck on 11.9.76, even as a beta participant. Also, I’m fully aware that sideloading the latest version is a possibility. That said, sideloading Google Play Services apps from .apk sites isn’t always the best idea and should probably be avoided. Should you install the wrong version of Google Play Services, you could really make your phone a living hell for a while.

Here’s what you should consider doing if you want to become a “Check for update” mashing pro that finds satisfaction in that button finally doing something after all these years – join the beta as I described above.

For those into v12.2.09, hit that button and let us know how it goes.

// reddit

Cheers Tom!