Everyone assumes Google already knows how you use your Pixel. This latest move shows it really doesn’t—at least not enough to fix Android’s most basic pain points: the settings you hunt for and toggle every single day.
Google Goes to Reddit for Pixel Settings Feedback
In a post on the Pixel subreddit, Google is explicitly asking Pixel owners to help it rethink how settings work on current and future devices. The company wants detailed feedback on “configuring your Pixel phone” and where that process falls apart.
This isn’t about flashy new features or headline-grabbing AI tricks. It’s about the unglamorous basics: managing, toggling, and discovering the right options inside the Settings app. The questions are framed around real-world frustration rather than abstract UX theory.
From Hardware Complaints to Software Pain Points
This isn’t Google’s first public survey of Pixel users. Previously, the company asked for feedback on the original Pixel’s hardware design. That effort focused on physical aspects: how the device feels, how it looks, where buttons are, and so on.
Now the lens has shifted to software. Instead of bezels, colors, and fingerprint placement, Google is drilling into how people configure their phones. The company explicitly frames this round as targeting the “software-side of the Pixel experience in regards to settings and device configurations.”
The scope is narrower but more personal. Hardware quirks might annoy you once; bad settings design can irritate you multiple times a day.
Oreo’s Settings Redesign Is the Starting Point
Android 8.0 Oreo already delivered a noticeable revamp of the Settings app. Google regrouped and reorganized frequently accessed controls, condensing categories and trying to make common options easier to find.
This new feedback push is clearly a follow-up to that redesign, not a replacement. Google says it is continuing the trend of focusing on particular categories inside Settings that people hit often. The goal is to understand how those changes hold up in daily use, not just on a design whiteboard.
In other words, Oreo set the new baseline. Now Google wants to know where that baseline still fails real users.
What Google Actually Wants to Know
The Reddit post doesn’t just ask, “What do you dislike?” and leave it there. Google is specifically asking about pain points with:
- Managing settings
- Toggling settings
- Discovering where a setting lives
The team also wants context, not just complaints. If you’re flipping a certain toggle 20 times a day, Google wants to know why, and in what situations. Are you killing a feature to save battery at work? Turning it back on at home? Fighting with auto behaviors that don’t match how you use your phone?
By tying each complaint to a scenario, Google is trying to avoid fixing the symptom instead of the actual problem. A setting that’s hard to find once is a discoverability issue; a setting you’re constantly toggling might point to a deeper design or behavior mistake.
From Feedback to Future Pixel Software
Google says it hopes to “incorporate this feedback to improve your Settings experience on Pixel devices in the future.” That’s the only concrete commitment.
There’s no promise of specific features or timelines, and no mention of how much weight this public feedback will have compared to telemetry or internal testing. The statement is deliberately broad: collect feedback now, refine the Settings experience on upcoming Pixel devices later.
Still, the focus on “often-used settings” and the explicit call-out of pain points suggest Google is targeting everyday friction: the things you notice immediately when they’re broken or buried.
What This Means for Pixel Owners Right Now
In practical terms, this is an invitation for engaged Pixel users to shape how future Pixels behave—especially around the unsexy but important parts of Android. The Settings app is where power users spend a lot of their time, but it also defines how approachable the phone is for everyone else.
If enough people describe similar scenarios—like repeatedly toggling a network, display, or privacy-related setting—Google has a clear signal on what to prioritize. If feedback clusters around navigation and discovery, that strengthens the case for reorganizing categories again or surfacing certain options more aggressively.
For now, nothing changes on your phone just because you post on Reddit. But it does give Google a structured, public channel to hear exactly how its design decisions land outside Mountain View meeting rooms.
A Quiet but Important Piece of the Pixel Puzzle
This kind of outreach doesn’t make for flashy keynote slides, but it does matter. Settings and configuration are the backbone of the user experience, even if most people only think about them when something is hard to find or behaves unexpectedly.
By returning to the community after the Oreo redesign and asking, essentially, “Where does this still suck in your real life?”, Google is admitting that the job isn’t done. Whether it’s minor category tweaks or bigger behavior changes, the company is clearly using this cycle to gather data for whatever comes next in the Pixel software lineup.
Check back soon as this story develops.