Are Androids considered "living creatures" in terms of beneficial spell effects?

Question

Core Rulebook, page 272 says there are spell effects targeting "living creatures" only:

Some effects restrict which targets can be selected. If an effect targets living creatures, it affects all creatures other than constructs and undead — in other words, biological or technobiological creatures that are alive.

So RAW "all creatures other than constructs and undead" means that if the creature is a construct, it is not considered a "living creature".

Androids are "both constructs and humanoids", therefore, they are constructs, therefore, they are not "living creatures":

For effects targeting creatures by type, androids count as both humanoids and constructs (whichever effect is worse).

Or are they? The rules are ambiguous:

• Androids are living creatures, because they are humanoids, and humanoids are "creatures other than constructs and undead"
• Androids are not living creatures, because they are constructs, so they are not "creatures other than constructs and undead"

The second ruling doesn't seem plausible. There are many beneficial effects that target living creatures only. For example, the Mystic Cure spell has "Targets one living creature" in its stat block. If androids are not "living creatures", how are they supposed to restore their Hit Points? Other means, for example, the Regeneration Table, means mention "living creatures" as well:

A living creature using a regeneration table is affected as if a 6th-level mystic cure spell as well as the remove affliction and restoration spells were cast on it

Answer 1

They are not constructs

According to the Core Rulebook, page 42, androids has the "humanoid (android)" creature type, not "construct" neither "humanoid/construct":

Androids are Medium humanoids with the android subtype

They also have "Constructed" race feature, that gives them +2 racial bonus to some saving throws and allows them to operate in a vacuum, but as a downside, lets them to be targeted with some harmful spells that affect only constructs normally:

For effects targeting creatures by type, androids count as both humanoids and constructs (whichever effect is worse). They receive a +2 racial bonus to saving throws against disease, mind-affecting effects, poison, and sleep, unless those effects specifically target constructs. In addition, androids do not breathe or suffer the normal environmental effects of being in a vacuum.

That feature doesn't turn their creature type to "construct" though - they are humanoids, therefore, they are living creatures.

Answer 2

As per this discussion on the Paizo forums, there is debate over whether or not effects that target "living creatures" are considered to be effects which are targeting by type - since "living creature" is not a type, although the definition of what a living creature is is made by reference to what types it is not. The categorisation of whether or not something is a living creature is not an "effect", so arguably the Constructed trait is irrelevant to the question of whether or not an android counts as a living creature.

If you accept this, then Androids count as living creatures (they are of type Humanoid with the Android subtype) and therefore they can be happily affected by any effect which targets a living creature. They could not, however, be affected by a beneficial effect which only targeted Humanoids, since then Constructed comes into play and they're considered Constructs; similarly they can't be affected by a beneficial effect which targets Constructs, because then they're considered Humanoid.

Basically, I think the RAW is ambiguous here and the intuitive reading of it is that Androids are not "living creatures", but there is a way to read it which defines Androids as living creatures and the general sense appears to be that Androids are special compared to other constructs (they have souls, you can raise them from the dead, so on) so I think they are meant to be targetable by these spells.