Project Treble Coming to Some Existing Flagships as Google Works With OEMs on Android O

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For those who are unaware, a number of Google employees who work on Android related projects actually hold a podcast called Android Developers Backstage. This podcast consists of Iliyan Malchev, Tor Norbye, Chet Haase and Romain Guy. The frequency of these podcasts is random (some months have 1 while others have 5) but there’s usually at least some nugget of information in them. The latest podcast (episode 75) came out yesterday and they focused on Project Treble.

Project Treble is an effort from the Android team at Google to make it easier and less costly for OEMs (and even silicon vendors) to get an existing device up and running on a new version of Android. This is something that has plagued the ecosystem for years and it’s quite embarrassing when you see it compared to how Apple does things. We have talked about this in more detail in the past, but it has been a huge undertaking and could result in faster and more OTA updates for end users.

Google has said they have done the work to make the Pixel and Pixel XL compatible with Project Treble, but they aren’t forcing other OEMs to do the same for their Nougat flagships. The system will be in place for devices shipping with Android O, but just because it’s easier and less expensive for an OEM to update a device to a new version of Android, doesn’t mean they actually will. Still, many are hopeful and some interesting information came out of the last episode of the Android Developers Backstage podcast.

Not only did folks at Google confirm they are working with “some companies” to update their flagships to Android O (which could mean faster updates for a few of them), but they also said that the team is working on “Treble-izing” them. We weren’t given any specifics as to which companies or devices are involved here, but it’s still good to know that Google is helping other OEMs out. Another interesting tidbit of information talked about devices which are compatible with Project Treble being able to run the stock Android image (assuming the HAL version is supported by the image).

So if Samsung’s Galaxy S8 and Galaxy S8+ are two of the devices Google is working to “Treble-ize,” then it could technically be made to run stock Android.