Future Android Devices may support 4 years of updates!

Qualcomm and Google have recently announced they will be working to expand Project Treble, Google’s ambitious multiyear project that aims to simplify OS updates. The aim is to make it easier for device manufacturers to upgrade phones and tablets to new Android versions without worrying about Qualcomm’s chipset-specific software. Qualcomm has been the manufacturer of the Snapdragon chipsets which is used used in Android phones, and Google are the manufacturers of the Android software itself. As of now, Android version updates do not support long-range of updates like iOS does, because Google have to wait for Qualcomm to update their chip-specific software before Google takes that and create the final android version update to the phone. They plan on achieving this by making more software-compatible chipsets for android phones. 

This move by Google and Qualcomm is not only a good one but one that is necessary. A recent study has shown that on average people are now holding onto their smartphones for longer periods of time, and it wouldn't be good if users cannot upgrade their software to current ones.

Source: CBNC

As of now, only the flagship Qualcomm chips are known to support three different android versions and this is an aspect where iOS has had the upper hand over Android. iOS devices usually get about five years of software upgrades. It is good to know that the recent iOS 14 is also available to the 2015 iPhone 6s. Apple is able to achieve this because they are the in control of both their hardware and their software, they are the makers of their chipsets and the software used in their devices, thus they are able to make both the OS and the chipsets to work with each other seamlessly.

Personally, I'm excited about the news and I hope it gets even better as time goes by.