Android’s fragmentation problem has been a major issue for Google. Until May of this year, only 10.4% of all active Android devices were running on Android Pie which was Google’s latest OS then. For perspective, iOS 12 was running on 88% of all active iOS devices in less than a year since it was released. But Google wants to solve this now.
Starting from February 2020, Google will make it compulsory for smartphone OEMs to ship with Android’s latest operating system; Android 10. If a manufacturer decided to launch a phone with Android Pie, they won’t get approval from Google. Information regarding this move was spotted in the latest version of Google’s GMS (Google Mobile Services) requirements.
Google Mobile Services includes Google Play Services and the Google Play Store, amongst others, that make up for the Android experience. For an OEM to include GMS on their phone, they need to submit their software builds to Google for approval. After being subject to a bunch of tests, Google then sends approval to OEMs to preload GMS on their device. This new move from Google will now ensure that OEMs don’t launch phones with outdated versions of Android. This is a different approach to solve the fragmentation problem. Rather than pushing on updates, this pushes the OEMs to start off with the latest OS.
SEE ALSO: Google Discloses Android ‘Zero Day’ Vulnerability That Affects Pixel, Samsung, Huawei, Xiaomi Phones
Google has previously tried different approaches to speed up the process of updates. Project Treble was its most recent attempt that started with Android Oreo which was designed to make it easier, faster, and cheaper for manufacturers to update their devices to new versions of Android. By restructuring the OS, Treble eliminated the need for OEMs to wait for silicon chip manufacturers to update their hardware code so that they could then start working on the software update.
