[Factory image] Google Pixel 4/4 XL December security update finally goes live, no manual download link yet

New updates are being added at the bottom of this story…….

Original story (published on December 10, 2019) follows:

The Pixel lineup is less like a true successor to the Nexus phones. The premium price tag and the corresponding rich hardware ecosystem was not present earlier, but the essence of blazingly fast updates is still here.

For example, The first-gen Google Pixel even received 3 major revisions of Android, ending with Android 10.

Interestingly, other OEMs are often winning the race against Google when it comes to rolling out security updates. OnePlus 7 Pro received the August patch much earlier than Pixel phones. Phone makers like Samsung started to deliver the December patch before the arrival of the month!

Well, that’s not the end! Google reportedly failed to deliver the latest OTA right on time, as several Pixel owners are still waiting for the update notification to appear on their phones. The same saga happened in the last month as well.

Cherry on top: Pixel 4/4 XL are officially scheduled to get the update with some delay.

Nevertheless, the waiting period is no more! Some lucky users are getting a small incremental update of size 129 MB on their Pixel 4/4 XL. Apart from December patch, it also packs in a major improvement.

As you can see, the Mountain View giant is trying to enhance the Face Unlock module by incorporating some kind of machine learning driven model. Captured face images are combined together to form better face models, although one can remove them via Settings.

The strange thing is, Google has not yet uploaded the OTA as well as the factory (fastboot) images for the December update for this phone duo. Gradual rollout? Something went south? Only time will tell.

Have you already received the update notification on your Google Pixel 4/4 XL? Are you facing the same ‘Downloading’ notification bug like other Pixel phones after installing the December patch? Let us know by commenting below.

Google promised to support enhanced dual-band GPS on the Pixel 4 handsets. Well, this functionality is now enabled thanks to the latest December update. Details here.

The update packages are now available for download. Take a look at here and here for the recovery and fastboot packages, respectively.

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