Qualcomm and Google Announce Collaboration to Extend Android OS Support and Simplify Upgrades
Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. and Google announced their collaboration to enhance and extend Project Treble with the goal of enabling more devices with Qualcomm® Snapdragon™ mobile platforms to run the latest Android OS. The enhancements are intended to enable Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEMs) to upgrade their Snapdragon based devices to the latest Android OS without modifying Qualcomm Technologies’ chipset-specific software and to use a common Android software branch to upgrade devices based on a wide range of Snapdragon mobile platforms across Qualcomm Technologies’ portfolio. These enhancements are designed to reduce the time and resources required to upgrade Snapdragon based devices to the latest Android OS version.
As part of this collaboration with Google, Qualcomm Technologies will now support four Android OS versions and four years of security updates for all Snapdragon platforms utilizing the Project Treble enhancements, starting with the new Snapdragon 888 Mobile Platform. These initiatives are designed to enable faster Android OS upgrades with fewer resources and a predictable software lifecycle for Snapdragon based devices, which together are expected to result in more consumers with Snapdragon based devices running the latest Android OS version.
“Google continues to work closely with our technology partners to increase the freshness of the Android ecosystem. Through this collaboration with Qualcomm Technologies, we expect that Android users will have the latest OS upgrades and greater security on their devices,” said David Burke, vice president of Android engineering, Google.
“We are excited to work with Google to extend our support for Android OS and security updates on future Snapdragon mobile platforms utilizing the Project Treble enhancements,” said Kedar Kondap, vice president, product management, Qualcomm Technologies, Inc. “Through this collaboration, we expect accelerated Android OS upgrade on Snapdragon based devices while providing a superior user experience for end users.”
For more information on Qualcomm Technologies’ collaboration with Google and the Android upgrade and security enhancements, please see the Google blog post here: https://android-developers.googleblog.com/2020/12/treble-plus-one-equals...
Update:
"Qualcomm will support the launch version + 3 OS upgrades, for a total of 4 major Android OS versions. Snapdragon 888 will support Android 11, 12, 13, and 14. "
So three years of major OS updates, and four years of security updates.