Google and Qualcomm are teaming up to enable a long support window for flagship Android smartphones. Qualcomm, with the help of Google, will now support its chipsets for three years of major OS updates and four years of security updates, enabling better than the pixel level for all your future Android phones, if your OEM is willing to cooperate. This policy is starting with the flagship Snapdragon 888, but lower-end chips will also be supported. Qualcomm PR tells us that “it plans to include this in all lower-level Snapdragon chipsets, but will launch the new Snapdragon 888 platform.”
Part of the challenge with Android updates is the constant chain of software custody that many companies have to maintain, from the Android repository to your phone. Google and Qualcomm now say they are ready to give the OEM an update baton, for three major updates and four years of security updates, but the OEM will actually need to update their Android skins and ship working builds on each of their devices. If they don’t, we at least know who to blame now.
Qcom Luckum and Google’s blog posts both include the same line, that they will “support 4 Android OS versions and 4 years of security updates.” Read that quote closely and you will see two different units of measurement there, which some people have misinterpreted. Despite four years of security updates, both companies are counting on the initial release of Android in their “4 Android OS versions”, so it’s not four years, but three years of Android updates. We checked twice with Qcom Lakom and came back with “Qcom Lakum, for a total of 4 major Android OS versions, will support the launch version + 3 OS upgrades. Snapdragon 888 will support Android 11, 12, 13 and 14.”
This is the same update plan that Pixels has received and that Samsung has promised, but with one more year of security improvements. Keep in mind, Qualcomm is also bringing this level of support to low-end devices, so while this is just a baby step for flagship phones, lower-end phones can see a massive increase in support windows.
All three trouble
Google’s blog post goes into detail about how it’s made easier for sock manufacturers like Qualcomm to update. Android’s Project Trouble redesign, splitting the OS from the modular interface to the hardware, divides it in half. This makes it easy to run the same build of Android on multiple pieces of hardware (called generic system images or GSI). While you’re an OEM making Android skin, it makes things easier, Google is clearly tweaking the update requirements on SOC vendors.
Society vendors are partly responsible for implementing a “vendor” in Project Treble – the lower half of the OS split that has hardware support. When backwards compatibility of the above items of Project Trouble Split (software software) was guaranteed, there was no hardware support. For each SOC, Qcom Lakom will need to maintain vendor implementation for each software history permutation. That means for phones that launched with Android 10, another for Android 11, and a third for devices that launched with Android 10 and were upgraded to Android 11.
The system did not scale well. Today, Google is vaguely announcing a change to Project Trouble that will allow Qualcomm to support new and upgraded devices with a single vendor implementation. It has also (again, vaguely) some sort of plan, so that Qualcomm can use the same vendor implementation in multiple SOCs, which will further cut its update function.
Quick updates are happening slowly
Google also takes this time to update us about the status of the Android update status. Android 11 is seeing the fastest adoption rate ever and at least in terms of raw users (previous release) claiming the fastest (I think the percentage will be very different because I doubt the total number of active Android users is one The years have changed.) Thanks to Project Trouble, Android 10 has turned into an evil hockey stick 100 days after the chart launch, and we’re not at that stage yet with Android 11.
Of course, this still doesn’t suit Android the way Apple does, with five years of major OS updates and seven years of security updates for the iPhone. Apple Pal is an SOC vendor, OS developer and device maker, so it has less logistics to work with, and no transaction is required to save profit margins in every step of the process.
The announcement of every Android update feels like a small step towards improving the situation, and blowing up the whole system will be nothing but a silver bullet. Just about every sentence in this article can end with a warning “if your OEM wants to cooperate” and for many, that last link in the update chain will be complicated. If your OEM doesn’t want to play ball, well, you know what to do, right? Vote from your let!
