Google released the first developer preview of Android 17 earlier this month, giving developers and early adopters a chance to poke around the next major version of Android. But for some Pixel owners who jumped in early, the experience has not been smooth. A growing number of users are reporting that their touchscreens are behaving erratically after installing the preview build.
According to Android Central, complaints have been piling up on Reddit and Google’s own issue tracker, with users describing touches that either do not register at all or trigger in the wrong spot on the screen. The bug appears to affect multiple Pixel models, making it a fairly broad issue rather than a one-off hardware problem.
It is worth keeping in mind that this is a developer preview, not a public beta or a stable release. These builds exist specifically for testing, and bugs are expected. Google itself warns users not to install developer previews on a primary device for exactly this reason. Still, a touchscreen bug is about as disruptive as it gets, since it makes the phone difficult or impossible to use normally.
The reports describe a few different symptoms, including:
- Touches not registering when tapping the screen
- Ghost touches triggering apps or inputs without any physical contact
- Touch inputs landing in the wrong location on the display
Pixel devices confirmed to be affected include several recent models, though the issue seems to hit some devices harder than others. Users on the Google issue tracker have already flagged it for the Android team, and a fix will likely come in a future preview update before Android 17 moves into its public beta phase later this year.
This kind of early stumble is not unusual for Android developer previews. Android 12’s early builds were notoriously buggy, and even Android 15 had its share of rough edges in the first preview. The difference is that most people testing these builds are developers who understand the risks and have a secondary device on hand. The concern is when bugs like this go unresolved as the builds mature toward a stable release.
Android 17 is expected to follow Google’s usual release schedule, with a stable rollout likely sometime in the second half of 2025. The developer preview phase typically runs for a few months before transitioning into public betas, giving Google time to squash issues like this one before regular users ever see them. For now, anyone thinking about trying Android 17 early should treat the touchscreen bug as a clear reason to wait for a more stable build.