Google’s new Longevity GRF program makes it easier for chipset vendors to support 7 years of Android updates. Here’s how.
About time.
Good. Longer device support is always a good thing and anything that makes that easier is a good thing as well. Computers can feasibly be updated for a decade or longer, and so smartphones should be able to achieve some of that as well.
I feel bad for Google in a way because attempts to get long device support have been thwarted by lack of interest in doing any work at all on the hardware support side from the vendors. This latest attempt again relies on the vendors doing what they do best after releasing their hardware – nothing.
Can’t Google somehow enforce this?
With what stick or carrot? Once a device is released, the vendor has already made their money. Google already gave permission to ship those devices with their software.
Let’s say that Google demands contractually seven years of updates or they won’t license you to use the Play Store. Well, this would be a problem because most handset makers aren’t developing the chips, and those chips don’t come with update commitments that long. Really, your typical handset developer is integrating hardware and software from multiple sources, and they aren’t actually writing directly drivers for the SOC. This would be an impossible demand because Google is making demands of an integrator not necessarily the maintainer of the software that powers the very bottom layers of the phone. A handset maker would simply refuse and ship the phone without the Google applications because what other choice do they have? That maintenance burden is monumental.
Google would somehow have to transitively demand that your chipset developers are providing long-term updates when they have no direct incentive to do so. In fact, they would prefer the shortest possible update commitment so they can sell new chips. Handset vendors want those chips to be as cheap as possible. It’s a complicated situation.
