Does pinning stop play store from updating?
3rd time after installing the latest update
Are you on the latest/current firmware release as well?
yes
16.2.1+9518b1a.emerald.user
We will release an OTA update to address this issue. Thanks for your patience!
Great, when do you think?
Since updating to Android OS 16, my Teracube no longer has the ability to multitask. Copying and pasting text back and forth between a messaging app and Google Translate has become a ridiculously tedious task, since the messaging app fully reloads. Itās almost as if the phone has zero cached memory anymore. The square button is basically useless as you cannot scroll and switch between apps. Iāve been able to multitask just fine on every Android OS going back to the original G1 running Android 2. So now in 2026, I have a Teracube which performs worse than the Android phone I had in 2013. I see some acknowledgement of task-killing causing this behavior, but if the bottom line is that v16 simply doesnāt allow for ANY multitasking then what is the proposed solution to avoid my Teracube becoming a total brick. Iām not blaming Teracube. Itās absolutely Googleās fault for building more and more bloated OSās and taking something simple like ādo not disturbā mode and making it more complex than the IRS tax code. Not to mention all the āsecurityā features like device Play Store Verification that break apps that used to do really useful things. But at the end of the day, whatās the point of releasing these new builds of Android OS that make the Teracube a worse and worse phone? Can we somehow go back to Android 12 or 13, a leaner OS that is actually compatible with this older hardware, but maybe with the worst security vulnerabilities patched?
Hey there! Please pin your apps from new app pinner we introduced in last update. This should allow apps to retain in memory. Recent apps have become much heavier and its expected to see some bottleneck. We are working on a new firmware mitigate some of these perfomance issues.
This is not a useful solution to the problem. Who uses only the same 5 apps every day? So I would still have to constantly open the settings menu and make sure the app I need to stay in RAM is pinned.
I would much rather just be able to have the OS keep the 3 most recently used apps in memory. If the RAM is available there is no reason to just clear a recently used app from memory.
Unfortunately Android 16 memory killing is based on CPU usage rather than actual available memory. The code path has been rewritten for it. Our old CPU is mostly at highest utilisation to keep up with modern apps and resources.
We have improved this behaviour a bit on upcoming update. Currently under testing.
I understand that, as itās been posted earlier. So back to my original question:
Since Android 16 clearly isnāt compatible with older hardware such as that on the Teracube 2e, since it eliminates the possibility of multitasking, why are you guys continuing to push updates based on Android 16? How about a stable, security-patched release of Android 13?
Its not about compatibility. Itās just modern apps are being too heavy. Android 13 will EOL soon in terms of security patches and it would perform poor too because apps are heavy.
But it is about compatibility. If Android 16 breaks multitasking, which has been a core feature of Android OS since version 1, then itās fair to say that Android 16 is NOT compatible with Teracube. I donāt disagree that modern apps are too heavy, BUT there is a workaround available to the user for that. Turn off auto-updating of apps and install older versions downloaded from sites like apkmirror. This is a far better, more functional workaround than pinning 5 apps so they donāt get killed.
I have another Android phone still running Android 12 and it still works fine, because Iāve never updated the stock apps that came with the phone.
Anyway, Iām not going to sit here and argue with a bot. Please just provide the guidance for downgrading back to whatever version of Android wasnāt vulnerable to the SMS forwarding hack and still offers multitasking. Donāt worry about which apps Iām installing and how heavy they are. Iāll take care of that part myself.
Again we are working on optimising the behavior. Google too is forced to optimise for low memory due to memory shortages in coming Android versions. Internally we were able to have last 3 apps running fine in memory. If you are opening a heavy app similar to how games behave it would kill all other apps to have resources. Which itself isnāt new.
We have addressed the issues raised by you in the latest update (It matches memory management similar to A14). Do check for updates today and donāt forget to share your experience
Thanks again for your patience! We have really worked hard to improve the experience.
Whatās New?
First boot after OTA may take a few extra minutes to settle.
June 2026 security patches
Improved app launch speed
Better multitasking & less app killing
Performance & battery improvements
Faster animations
Fixed apps not updating
Fixed Play System Updates crash
Fixed wallpaper not applying
OTA update progress now shown in boot animation
Launcher app suggestions disabled by default (can be re-enabled in Launcher Settings)
Disabled haptics in launcher
General stability & cleanup improvements
First boot after OTA may take a few extra minutes to settle.
June 2026 security patches
Improved app launch speed
Better multitasking & less app killing
Performance & battery improvements
Faster animations
Fixed apps not updating
OTA update progress now shown in boot animation
Launcher app suggestions disabled by default (can be re-enabled in Launcher Settings)
General stability & cleanup improvements