Turns out there's a fix for Pixel performance issues, turn off Digital Wellbeing
The Google Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL were mostly well-received by critics and reviewers, but if there was one thing to criticize, it was the presence of bugs which affected the phone's performance. Now, some users are reporting that by disabling Digital Wellbeing, Google's new system to combat smartphone addiction that made its debut on the Pixel 3, you can solve the performance issues.
On a thread on the Google Pixel sub-reddit, users are linking dips in performance directly to the Digital Wellbeing features. A post by Trueray17 stated that he had spent months trying different methods in an attempt to fix the Pixel 3's sluggishness and stuttering issues. After trying reboots, uninstalling unwanted apps, clearing the cache, doing full system wipes, and more, he had no success.
Then, Digital Wellbeing came to mind. The post said: "I went into my settings clicked on Digital Wellbeing, clicked the 3 dots on the top right and turned off usage access. Disabling digital Wellbeing from tracking apps and data. After that, my phone has been butter smooth not one stutter or lag." He also posted a video on YouTube, showing how to do it.
This creates a bit of a dilemma for users. Do you want to be digitally well, or do you want to have the best possible performance on your Pixel smartphone? Digital Wellbeing was designed to help users better understand how much time they were spending in certain apps or how many times they have unlocked their phone. It was Mountain View's attempt at riding this current wave of focus on mindfulness and wellness - every big tech company wants to be seen to be looking after its users after spending the last decade or so trying to make them addicted to their products.
It should be noted that the Pixel 3 and Pixel 3 XL performance issues were not exactly widespread. Sure, the news made headlines last year, and our own Christopher Gabbert noted as much in his Google Pixel 3 review, but we aren't talking about a big scandal here.
What do you think about the news that disabling Digital Wellbeing could fix your Pixel performance issues? Another nail in the feature's coffin? Let us know.
Via: XDA Developers Source: Reddit
Bloatware is bloatware regardless of its intent. The best way to start supporting digital wellbeing would be for manufacturers and telecoms to install fewer apps (preferably none) on the phone to begin with.