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That’s still a pretty low number, when you compare it to iOS, but Project Treble does seem to be helping these devices get onto the latest version of Android sooner.
In Google’s report today, it showed that there is still a pretty small number of devices on Android Pie, compared to where it should be – a year after launch. But comparing that to previous versions, it’s a pretty sharp increase of devices getting this version, compared to the same time period for Android Nougat and Oreo.
Almost 700 million devices are on Android Pie now, meanwhile a year after launch for both Nougat and Oreo, that number was around 275 million. That’s a pretty big increase in updates. That’s also what Project Treble was designed to do.
Project Treble is paying off for Google
Google announced Project Treble two years ago. It really started to show how well it would work, with the Android Pie update last year.
Basically, Project Treble was Google re-organizing how the framework was built inside of Android. Making it easier to update and upgrade to the next version of Android. It wasn’t anything super fancy, but it is working for manufacturers.
Project Treble should help Google get more people the latest version of Android sooner. But it will never be as fast as Apple, unfortunately. And that’s due to Android being open source, and the sheer amount of partners it has making Android devices.
Nearly a quarter of Android users on Pie is still too low
A year after launch, the number of Android devices on Pie should be much higher than just a quarter of them.
But this is a step in the right direction. Compared to earlier versions where that number would have been around 10-percent or even less than that.
The biggest issue for Google is getting these cheap smartphones to upgrade to the latest version of Android in a timely fashion, which right now, isn’t happening. If they are updated at all.
It’s something that is always going to be an issue for Google unfortunately, and now with Mainline, Google is taking another step to help its partners get these updates out sooner.
With Project Mainline, it’s going to allow Google to directly update parts of the operating system by itself. Without needing to wait for the manufacturer to get around to doing it themselves.
There’s also DSU or Dynamic System Updates, which is part of Android 10, and Google is able to push out updates via the Google Play Store to users now.