Long-term patching problems still haunt web giant s mobile OS platform
Matthew Hughes Thu 17 Dec 2020 // 19:31 UTC Share
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Google and Qualcomm have linked arms to extend the lifecycle of new Android devices, meaning future phones could receive as many as three major operating system updates provided they re running the latest Snapdragon silicon.
This has been accomplished by reducing the amount of effort required by chipset manufacturers like Qualcomm to support newer Android versions.
Since Google s Project Treble reforms in 2017, Android has been modularised, splitting the hardware interactions (called a vendor implementation ) from the rest of the operating system (called a Generic System Image). While this reduced the amount of work OEMs need to undertake to support existing devices, a portion of that burden has been shifted onto the shoulders of chipset manufacturers, who are responsible for building and maintaining vendor implementations.