Qualcomm promises three years of Android updates for its entire SoC lineup

[Karlston]

Qualcomm promises three years of Android updates for its entire SoC lineup

The new plan is three years of major OS updates and four years of security updates.

Enlarge / The Snapdragon 888, sitting on the world's biggest ARM motherboard.

Qualcomm

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Google and Qualcomm are teaming up to enable a longer support window for flagship Android smartphones. Qualcomm, with Google's help, will now support its chipsets for three years of major OS updates and four years of security updates, enabling a better-than-Pixel level for all future Android phones, provided your OEM is willing to cooperate. This policy is starting with the flagship Snapdragon 888, but even lower-end chips will be supported. Qualcomm PR tells us "the plan is to roll this out to all Snapdragon chipsets, including lower-tier ones, but starting with the new Snapdragon 888 platform."

 

Part of the challenge of Android updates is the continuous chain of software custody that has to be maintained across several companies, from the Android repository to your phone. Google and Qualcomm now say they are willing to pass the update baton to OEMs for three major updates and four years of security updates, but OEMs will actually need to update their Android skins and ship working builds to each of their devices. If they don't, we at least know who to blame now.

 

Qualcomm's and Google's blog posts both contain the same phrasing, that they will "support 4 Android OS versions and 4 years of security updates." Read that quote closely and you'll spot two different units of measurement happening there, which some people have misinterpreted. While there are four years of security updates, the two companies are counting the initial release of Android in their quote of "4 Android OS versions," so it's three years of major Android updates, not four years. We double-checked with Qualcomm and got back "Qualcomm will support the launch version + 3 OS upgrades, for a total of 4 major Android OS versions. Snapdragon 888 will support Android 11, 12, 13, and 14."

 

This is the same update plan Pixels have gotten and what Samsung has promised, but with one more year of security updates. Keep in mind, Qualcomm is also bringing this level of support to low-end devices, so while this is only a baby step for flagship phones, lower-end phones could see greatly increased support windows.

Treble trouble

Google's blog post goes into detail about how it has made updating easier for SoC manufacturers like Qualcomm. Android's Project Treble re-architecture split the OS in half, separating the OS from the hardware with a modular interface. This makes it easy to run the same build of Android across multiple pieces of hardware (it's called a Generic System Image, or GSI). While that makes things easier if you're an OEM building an Android skin, Google was apparently heaping update requirements on SoC vendors.

 

SoC vendors are partly responsible for the "vendor" implementation in Project Treble—the bottom half of OS split that contains the hardware support. While things above the Project Treble split (the software) were guaranteed backward compatibility, the hardware support was not. For each SoC, Qualcomm would need to maintain a vendor implementation for each software history permutation. That means one 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.

 

This system did not scale well. Today, Google is vaguely announcing changes to Project Treble that will let Qualcomm support new and upgrading devices with a single vendor implementation. It has also (again, vaguely) cooked up some kind of scheme to let Qualcomm use the same vendor implementation across multiple SoCs, which will cut down on its update work even more.

Faster updates are slowly happening

 

Google is also taking this time to update us on the state of the Android update situation. Android 11 is ever so slightly seeing the fastest adoption rate ever and is outpacing the previous release (previously the fastest ever), at least in terms of raw users (I doubt the percentage would be much different since I doubt the total number of active Android users has changed in a year.) Thanks to Project Treble, the Android 10 chart turned into a wicked hockey stick about 100 days after launch, and we're not at that stage yet with Android 11.

 

Of course, this still doesn't bring Android in line with what Apple has been doing, which is five years of major OS updates and seven years of security updates for iPhones. Apple is the SoC vendor, the OS developer, and the device manufacturer though, so it has fewer logistics to work out, and it doesn't have to deal with preserving profit margins in each step of the process.

 

Every Android update announcement feels like one small step toward making the situation better, and nothing will be a silver bullet aside from blowing up the whole system. Just about every sentence in this article could end with the caveat of "if your OEM wants to cooperate," and for many, that last link in the update chain will be the critical one. If your OEM doesn't want to play ball, well, you know what to do, right? Vote with your wallet!

 

 

Qualcomm promises three years of Android updates for its entire SoC lineup

[zanderthunder]

That's why I prefer Qualcomm-based SOC's when I buy a new phone. Guaranteed 2 major Android updates, but now up to 3 major Android updates. And best of all, they even release their kernel source to enable custom ROM developers to provide more than 2-3 major Android updates. Like my Redmi 3S which initially comes with Android 6.0, but I now can install Android 11 on my phone thanks to development of custom ROM's.

Unlike Mediatek and other chipmakers, which usually only able to provide up to one major Android update, some cases like phones under Android One program or Realme phones can get up to 2 major Android updates (albeit taking more time of development). And when it comes to kernel source, they actually don't keen to release it for custom ROM developments.