Google has published some statistics about the effects of Project Treble on Android updates.
In late July, 2018, just before Android 9 Pie was launched in AOSP, Android 8.0 (Oreo) accounted for 8.9% of the ecosystem. By comparison, in late August 2019, just before we launched Android 10, Android 9 (Pie) accounted for 22.6% of the ecosystem. This makes it the largest fraction of the ecosystem, and shows that Project Treble has had a positive effect on updatability.
That’s definitely good news, but Google still has a long way to go.
That sounds pretty good to me. The thing holding them back seem to be just people holding on to old phones.
Old phones tend to last longer. For example, I surf the net on an HTC One Max (Lollipop and all) because I like the screen, so if Google chooses to leave behind old phones in the hope that people will soon upgrade to newer hardware, they are mentally stuck where they ‘ve been 8 years ago when frequent hardware updates hid the poor state of Android upgradeability and security patching.
BTW we don’t need upgrades as much as we need security patches.
Agreed, but I haven’t experienced much quality hardware with Android. Samsung, Pixels, LG’s, Motorolas, all seem to physically break for me at around 2 years. Since I switched to an Iphone I’m on year three and going really strong. But yes security updates are vital. I’d be on pixel if not Iphone.
My LG Optimus 2X is still running. I mean physically, the Play Services support has been killed which means even some installed games won’t launch due to DRM checks.
Not a huge loss, since my LG Optimus 2X aka fake-flagship was never that fast and got ridiculously underpowered and memort-constrained by time, which shows how people were forced to upgrade in the past (but aren’t know) and this used to help with version uptake statistics.
Google will have to soon face an “XP problem” with Android, aka a sizeable number of users just refusing to upgrade and forcing Google to provide extended support for Play Services on that version, and it could evolve into a security problem too. The “Android XP” version can as well be Lollipop, as it’s modern enough as a version and most phones shipped with it meet the minimum 16GB/2GB bar for a usable experience.
Yeah, I can see the xp thing happening. I think Xp was worse simply because of the number of Small offices that had custom software running on it. I’m not sure how common that is with mobile devices. Maybe kiosks?
The XP thing will happen in Android due to devices not receiving upgrades and still being usable. Android Lollipop (and Marshmallow) was an era phone manufacturers were still offering removable batteries even in flagships, so these phones can be kept running with minimal cost. So I can easily see those two versions becoming Android’s XP.
I still use my Sony Xperia Z5 Compact. I will not update until the new model comes out and since the Z5 compact can only do android 7.* and the Xperia Ace is only available in Asia, i guess i am in for a long wait.