Google announced Project Treble
earlier this year mainly to fix the slow Android version adoption and
its resultant fragmentation. First, it was reported that only new
devices that ship with Android O
will get the Project Treble framework. However, now Google engineers
Romain Guy, Iliyan Malchev, and Chet Haase confirm that the company has
been working with OEMs to bring Project Treble to some other smartphones
as well.
On
the latest episode of the Android Developers Backstage podcast, the
three engineers discuss Project Treble and what it would mean for the
latest Android O update. The engineers confirm that Pixel
devices are getting the Treble support because of Qualcomm's Snapdragon
821 chipset, and other OEMs may too see the same. The engineers confirm
that they are in conversation with some OEMs to bring Treble support to
few flagships with the Android O update, however they refrain from
providing any further detail. We presume that big OEMs like Samsung, LG,
and others may be a part of this project, however nothing is certain as
of yet. You can listen to the whole podcast here.
Android O is largely rumoured to release on August 21, and may be more information will come out then. For those unaware, Project Treble was launched in May
as an important step toward faster and more frequent Android release
updates on devices. It essentially allows OEMs to update to the latest
Android software, without making a ton of changes.
Previously,
manufacturers had to wait for chipmakers to modify the new release to
their specific hardware. After receiving the modified software from
chipmakers, OEMs then made their own tweaks, test it out with carriers,
and then release it to compatible smartphones. Now, with Project Treble,
a separate vendor interface is created between the Android OS framework
and the vendor implementation. Google claims that it will work with
chipmakers to ensure the vendor interface is compatible beforehand, and
the validation of that will be done by a Vendor Test Suite (VTS).

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