A few days ago, my colleague Xiaozhi said to me “I can’t upgrade my OnePlus 7 Pro to Andorid 11, all because of Qualcomm”, and then sent me an official announcement from the OnePlus community. In the announcement, OnePlus said it was working with Qualcomm’s technical team to solve the upgrade problem for the OnePlus 7/7T series as soon as possible. Below this post, there are many OnePlus users expressing the same angry and helpless feelings as Xiaozhi.
The newest version of the software will be available in the next few days.
The official announcement on the Android 11 compatibility of the OnePlus 7 / 7T series. Image from: OnePlus Community
When I told Xiaozhi about this news, he replied, “I didn’t expect this to be available,” and “I guess we’ll have to wait for the public test to come out in 12 months,” and then fell silent again.
The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible solution to the problem.
The Google Galaxy Nexus.
The Galaxy Nexus is the son of Google, and it has been updated to Android 4.4 Kitkat for two years.
Later, Android devices with Qualcomm Snapdragon 801 processors (MSM8974) could not be upgraded to Android Nougat because Qualcomm did not adapt them, and in the latter case, it was Xiaozhi’s OnePlus 7 Pro.
This kind of chip-level problem is difficult for cell phone manufacturers to solve on their own, and naturally there is no way to promote the adaptation of the new Android system. The company’s main goal is to provide the best possible solution to the problem.
The new version of Xiaomi 11 is equipped with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888.
In order to avoid this situation in the future, Google has started a deep cooperation with Qualcomm, saying that it will guarantee three years of Android major version update and four years of security patch update for the phones equipped with Snapdragon SoC.
In other words, new phones with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888 SoCs will have a longer update cycle, with at least four major Android updates (including Andorid 11) until Android 14, and monthly security patch updates until 2025.
Is it lazy to not actively update Android?
According to past experience, Android devices generally have a system upgrade period of about 2 years, even the Pixel series, which is Google’s “own son”, will only guarantee a major version update for 3 years and a security patch update for 3 years.
However, Android manufacturers update their products very frequently, and there are many flagship, mid-range and entry models, so the resource updates will be concentrated on the popular (flagship) models. Thus, it is difficult for vendors to ensure that all products will have a long enough (2~3 years) update cycle, and more often there are only a few small versions of updates.
So, why are Android manufacturers so inactive in updating their systems, are they lazy?
To clarify this question, let’s first clarify the steps required for a major Android update.
Google sends the source code to AOSP (Android Open Source Project).
The chip manufacturer downloads the source code and modifies it for the source code, and the device equipped with its own chip is able to function properly.
The chip maker sends the modified code to OEMs, who make targeted adaptations (system customization) according to their needs.
OEM conducts small-scale internal testing and then small-scale public testing.
After the stability and maturity, the OTA will make a large-scale push.
In recent years, Google has paid more attention to the problem of Android fragmentation, and the speed of submitting source code is much faster.
When chip makers get the source code, they may encounter technical problems and delay the modification process, such as the recent “OnePlus 7/7T series”, but it is a minority.
The real impact on the adaptation progress is actually on the OEM phone manufacturers’ side. After the chip maker submits the modified code to the OEM, the OEMs need to perform the underlying adaptation and system customization for each device, which is a huge amount of work and requires a lot of human and material resources due to the large number of adapted models, which translates into a long wait for users.
In fact, cell phone manufacturers are not lazy, of course, they also want to quickly complete the system iteration and update, but there are too many “adaptation work”, “I can’t do it”.
In order to reduce the burden of cell phone manufacturers, Google has launched Project Treble
In order to further reduce the workload of OEMs in adapting the new system and continue to reduce the fragmentation of Android, Google introduced the mechanism called “Project Treble” in 2017 (Android 8.0).
Simply put, Google divided the source code into the underlying core and upper interface parts, and took on the underlying core code together with the chip makers. Google has changed the previous Android mechanism, the underlying core driver does not need to be upgraded with the Android version number, it can be solidified in the phone.
This means that OEMs do not have to adapt each phone individually, but are directly responsible for the adaptation and customization of the upper interface, which greatly reduces the workload of previous phone manufacturers, and in theory, all models that comply with Google’s Project Treble mechanism can get a major version upgrade of Android.
In addition to Project Treble, Google has also expanded the scope of cooperation with third-party Android phone brands. Last year’s Android 10 Beta supported 21 phones from 13 manufacturers in the first place, which was considered the most ever. And this year’s Android 11 has Xiaomi, OnePlus, OPPO, Vivo, realme and other brands launched the Android 11 Beta upgrade program at the first time, which is obviously faster than before.
However, the first upgrade of Android 10 and Android 11 is mostly Beta version, and it is limited to some mainstream/flagship models, and still can’t cover more models, which is also the problem that Project Treble is facing now.
What has Qualcomm solved with Google?
After the cooperation between Google and Qualcomm, the efficiency of Project Treble’s underlying core part adaptation is improved, while the system adaptation responsible for cell phone manufacturers only plays a role in promoting, but also can not influence the speed of manufacturers’ adaptation.
Android phones are updated very frequently, and each manufacturer launches a number of phones with different positioning every year, so the workload for adapting large versions of Android is naturally very huge. The newest version of Android is the newest version of Android.
The atomic component of vivo OriginOS.
In addition, the highlights of the last two years’ major Android updates are far less than the highlights of some domestic Android system customizations, and the users’ “perception is not strong”. This is the reason why cell phone manufacturers are gradually focusing on the development and adaptation of new systems, and are less enthusiastic about the adaptation of major versions of Android.
Android security patches are a special type of update that Google has been releasing every month for the past five years to fix security vulnerabilities in Android and keep devices safe.
Google releases a security patch every month, and cell phone manufacturers arrange their own adaptations, so can the manufacturers’ security patches be fixed in time, and how much is the update cycle?
I randomly found several old and new phones in the editorial department of Ai Fan, respectively the Pixel in 2016, Xiaomi MIX2 released in 2017, One Plus 7 Pro released in 2019, vivo S7e and huawei P40 in 2020, and updated to the latest system to check the latest security patch date.
The results are as follows: Pixel updated to October 6, 2019, Xiaomi MIX2 updated to September 1, 2019, OnePlus 7 Pro updated to October 1, 2020, Huawei P40 updated to November 1, 2020, and vivo S7e updated to November 1, 2020.
In addition to its son Pixel, many products are actually linked to the Android system security patch update cycle, which is considered to have a two-year update cycle, which means that many old Andorid devices have security protection cycle also stays at two years. The new version of Android will be released in the first half of 2012, and the new version will be released in the second half of 2012.
The growth of the number of users of each version after the release of the new version of Android, Android 10 is in the lead. Image from: Google
Google has launched many initiatives to promote the update of Android and further eliminate fragmentation, such as the Project Treble program and cooperation with the underlying hardware manufacturer (Qualcomm). To get GMS certification, new phones need to be pre-installed with Android 10 (or old phones can be upgraded to the new version), which keeps pushing the installation rate of Android 10.
We won’t discuss the commercial factors behind the GMS and Android system binding here, but Google’s “several axes” have indeed increased the update rate of Android 10 and Android 11, and the fragmentation of Android system is also developing in a good direction under the 5G switch tide. The key thing is that we benefit from both the major version of Android and the extension of the security patch update cycle.
Recent Comments