Will Google soon stop with annual Android updates?

Will Google soon stop with annual Android updates?

Google’s Android team asks itself whether Android updates should still come annually. New Android versions contain fewer and fewer improvements and the system of annual updates comes with a number of drawbacks, including the many older Android versions that remain in circulation.

Annual version updates for Android

At Androidworld we follow the news about Android 13 closely and while the upcoming update still comes with important improvements, you can’t compare the impact of version updates with more important updates from years ago. It is a trend that has been going on for some time and Android 12 with, among other things, its radical new design, we repeatedly called the largest version update in years.

In a conversation with Tweakers Google asks whether that annual ritual of new version updates for Android is still relevant. Especially since Android phones are now being updated in many other ways. In addition to version updates, there are also updates for Google Play Services, for individual Google apps and security updates. For example, Google can easily update its Chrome browser monthly, apart from the annual version update. That’s different from Apple devices where an iOS update is used to introduce new features to Safari.

Negative image

And then there are drawbacks. A system of annual updates puts a lot of pressure on manufacturers, leaving many brands behind in updating their phones. In this way, Google also creates the negative image that Android versions are highly fragmented and that many old versions are in circulation.

Will Google soon stop with annual Android updates?
Android 10 worked on more phones in November 2021 than the more recent Android 11

That is a perception that Google is apparently not satisfied with, because for several years it has only been communicating sparsely about the distribution of the different Android versions. In November 2021, it was announced that more devices still run on Android 10 than they work on Android 11.

Sign on the wall?

Another drawback is the pressure that Google also puts internally on its Android team. In recent months, in addition to the Android 13 update, Google has also been working on its Android 12L update for tablets and foldable phones. In addition, users of the Android 12 beta continued to receive regular updates, even when the stable version of Android 12 had already been released.

In addition, we could also see that there were also obvious issues with the Pixel 6 series updating in the previous months. Users of Google’s latest flagships had to deal with a remarkable number of software errors and it also took Google a lot of time to solve the problems. Security updates appeared several times later for the Pixel 6 series and that could be a sign on the wall.

‘No statements’

Is Google considering an update every two years or every year and a half? Such a step does not seem like a thing for the foreseeable future, because Google gives the impression that it is still looking for a better approach. “I’m not going to announce anything about that now,” Android engineer Trystan Upstill told Tweakers. “But it’s really something we’re thinking about. Some features still require a version upgrade to get them to users, many don’t. We’re trying to find optimal ways to release new features .”

What do you think of the idea of ​​version updates coming in its place on a biannual basis? Do you think Google is doing a good job of reducing the pressure on manufacturers and its own developers? Let us know in the comments.

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– Thanks for information from Androidworld. Source

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