37 ms·

Treble: A modular base for Android

419 points by chickenbane 9y ago

GordonS 9y ago
Do vendors actually want to let users update the software on their devices though? I would have thought new shiny software was a nice incentive to get customers to upgrade to a new phone?
- jeron 9y ago
  customers would be more inclined to buy from a vendor that does use Treble
  - Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
    By this logic, shouldn't the Nexus/Pixel phones be a lot more popular than they are?
    - s73ver 9y ago
      They can't become popular if they're difficult to buy.
      - therealmarv 9y ago
        exactly
    - croon 9y ago
      I haven't looked at the numbers, but they're unavailable in a lot of countries, and are kind of expensive since a few generations.
    - therealmarv 9y ago
      End customers don't even know that Nexus/Pixel phones exist (because you mostly cannot buy them everywhere) and they don't know the benefit from such devices and they also don't care deeply enough.
      - Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
        I agree that the Nexus phones are advertised poorly, but the Pixels have a lot of advertising in the carrier's stores here in Canada. The Rogers where I got my last phone, for example, had a dedicated display in the middle of the store for the Pixel phones.
        prophesi 9y ago
        There's also the issue that the Nexus line were perfect budget phones, while the Pixels are high-end. So even with much better advertising, cost becomes the Pixels barrier to entry.
        GordonS 9y ago
        Totally agree with this. Nexus was good performance for an affordable price. Pixel is so much more expensive that Nexus owners are likely to balk at the price tag.
        Eridrus 9y ago
        And Google can't keep up with demand for Pixels: http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/14/nearly-5-months-google-still-cant-keep-pixel-stock/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/14/nearly-5-months-goog...
    - archvile 9y ago
      They might be, if people actually knew that they existed...
    - joshmarinacci 9y ago
      The way people buy phones is a lot more complicated. Most people pick a carrier first, and then the phone; and most people buy their phone from their carrier store (or a carrier booth at a place like Costco). Thus the consumer choices are controlled by the carrier. If a carrier doesn't want to sell a Pixel phone, then few will be sold, regardless of what consumers might 'want'. Apple is obviously an exception to this due to their own advertising and stores.
      - deleted 9y ago
        [deleted]
      - pjmlp 9y ago
        Not in Europe, generally. Most countries have more pre-paid users than on contracts, so we get our phones from computer or phone stores instead of carrier stores.
    - petecox 9y ago
      Even Google abandons their products after a couple of releases. Perhaps better supported than other manufacturers but I'm running 7.1.2 on a Nexus 4 only through Lineage OS.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    Would they? Or would 99% of them not know about this kind of stuff until it was too late? A huge percent of people with Android phones think they're Google phones (not Motorola or Huawei or Acer or whatever), so if they decide to avoid their old 'brand' wouldn't they try to avoid Android? Of course if they know they have a Samsung they can avoid that, but... This is what, the third or fourth try at fixing this problem? It needs fixing, but I'm rather skeptical at this point. Just because the hardware interface doesn't need to be re-created doesn't mean the vendors will ship updates. It will just be waiting on something else like vendor/carrier software customization that they're not going to bother with because they'd rather work on the new model. Good luck Google. This would be a great thing for everyone. I just don't hold much hope.
- jm_l 9y ago
  Companies are incentivized in the long term to make good products. This incentive usually eclipses incentives that our (often justified) anti-corporate suspicions invent.
  - bluehazed 9y ago
    Judging by the sheer number of devices running outdated Android versions and the consumer unfriendly tactics such as locked bootloaders, carrier-locked modems, bloatware, and sometimes even tracking software (fair to call this spyware?) employed by carriers and manufacturers I'd say that incentive to produce good products rarely eclipses these supposedly "invented" negative incentives. That said, Treble looks like a good step in the right direction. Maybe things will improve in the future.
  - GordonS 9y ago
    I'd like to believe that. But profits rule. Smartphone usage must be pretty close to saturation point, in the developed world at least. Samsung, Apple etc release a new, expensive device every year, and it's natural that they are going to want existing customers to upgrade. I think the only way Android users (of non-Google devices, that is) are going to get software upgrades is if Google somehow forces vendors to do it.
    - petra 9y ago
      It might be enough for a single vendor to "break ranks" and go with treble to have a decent effect. Xiaomi did so with their large batteries, for example.
      - GordonS 9y ago
        I'm more an Android guy, so I don't have an iPhone (except for testing on mobile apps I'm working on), and so I don't know what the update situation is like. But my (limited!) understanding is that when they release new iOS versions they are available at least a couple of generations back - is that correct? Or if you buy a network locked phone is it up to the network?
- ethbro 9y ago
  We'll find out when the first vendor inevitably abuses a feature in the interface to specifically make their phone un-upgradable.
  - Godel_unicode 9y ago
    > un-upgradable. I believe you mean "differentiated" :)
    - madez 9y ago
      Product differentiation is an underestimated evil of our time.
      - mtgx 9y ago
        Some would argue it was what killed Nokia, too. It chose to go with Windows Phone to "be different", even though Android and iOS were already established and WP didn't have much of a market share.
        digi_owl 9y ago
        It was pretty much what strangled the community efforts surrounding Maemo as well. Core pieces of early Maemo, like power management, was closed source, for "differentiation".
  - sowbug 9y ago
    VTS is meant to address that concern.
- skdotdan 9y ago
  They definitely want to be able to do so in a fast, cheap way. Another thing is whether they will actually be fair with the updates, but I'm sure that Project Treble will reduce Android's fragmentation.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  It's worth keeping in mind which vendors are being talked about here. Treble fixes the problem of "manufacturer who didn't do any customization can't update because Qualcomm never updated their drivers & friends" by ensuring that the level that the Qualcomms, Nvidias, etc... build against is forwards-compatible. So small manufacturer can just take a new android source drop from google and plop it on top of the binaries they originally got from qualcomm or whoever and tada! done. It doesn't help with the "OEM injected so much 'customization' that it's a disaster to move forward and will forever be abandonware"
  - zanny 9y ago
    If only a project existed to support devices beyond what the original manufacturers were willing to put out with singular consistent releases across all hardware. Oh yeah, Lineage. If only the company that made the OS actually supported the effort to perpetually support devices with a single OS the way Android should have been from day 1.
    - oridecon 9y ago
      The problem is that you have to trust Lineage's (just an example) developers and release process. If you want Google Apps installed you need to trust another 3rd party like http://opengapps.org http://opengapps.org or https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/. At this point I'm not so sure what's better: an updated OS or one full of known exploits.
      - zifnab06 9y ago
        Why wouldn't they be trustable? You always have the option of building it yourself. (disclaimer, I'm one of the leads & run their infrastructure)
        oridecon 9y ago
        Like I said, it was just an example. I don't have the time or knowledge to review an entire custom ISO and after that another ISO from the Gapps provider that I choose. I'm sure there are some tricks to cut down the review process time but anyway. It's a trade-off. I'm installing custom software to improve security, but at the same time, can I trust that this solution won't be a source of malware? I hope this didn't came out as accusatory, I was just trying to show another aspect of using custom ROMs.
- maxsilver 9y ago
  Not every vendor has an 18 month refresh cycle -- not everyone is just selling disposable phones and tablets A lot of people want longer Android support -- especially enterprise installations, which want to pay for software on 4-8 year hardware cycles, but the short length of Android's current support prevents them from doing this. There are lots of Qualcomm / Freescale chips running Android inside Airplane Seatbacks, and Hotel Kiosks, and Business Wall Signage, and more that simply will not be replaced for many many years. Today, Board OEMs are essentially forbidden from updating these, even if they want to (since Qualcomm / Freescale won't release the tools they need). After Treble, OEM Vendors will at least have the option of updating these devices, even without Qualcomm / Freescale / etc's permission.
  - GordonS 9y ago
    Yes, enterprise-size companies want this, especially with regards to security. But companies of that size buy Samsung or/and Apple (in general, I'm sure there are exceptions). Now, with the prices of these devices they are not exactly what I would call 'disposable', but (for Samsung at least, I can't say for Apple) update availability is highly dependant on the network carrier. I think Google needs to somehow force the availability of updates, regardless of whether the vendor wants to use updated software as a selling point for their latest phone - maybe Treble is a step towards that.
    - maxsilver 9y ago
      > But companies of that size buy Samsung or/and Apple (in general, I'm sure there are exceptions). That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about corporate issued Samsung Galaxy Tablets. I'm talking about Android embedded into other products. Companies, of any size, don't buy Samsung or Apple for this because neither of those companies really exist in those markets at all. I'm talking about devices like the Delta Kiosk you use to print your Airline tickets. The self-service checkout machine you use at WalMart. The LCD panel in the wall of an corporate HQ that shows all Outlook meetings scheduled in that room. The newer Smart TVs in Hotel Rooms that let you order pay-per-view and food to your room's bill. Many of those devices also run Android, and have no upgrade path even though their OEMs desperately want one. Project Treble helps them out, even more so than it might for smaller phone companies (like say HTC).
- neogodless 9y ago
  If we look back through history, we'll see Compaq computers with awful software pre-installed... even bundles including ISP software (AOL, Juno, anyone?) But then we started to see Signature edition computers without bloatware (and Microsoft moving to make it easier to remove the extra software.) We can only hope that phones follow this trajectory. And maybe more quickly, as they can learn from the past. Sure, computer manufacturers liked new versions of Windows pushing computer purchases, but now we're at a point where Windows 10 exists, and updates are something not even the consumer can block.
  - remir 9y ago
    A "Signature Edition" of Android would be interesting.
    - happycube 9y ago
      They did that for a while with Google Play Editions...
      - danieldk 9y ago
        Indeed. And supposedly, the Android Silver program was going to continue this [1], but failed. [1] http://www.androidcentral.com/android-silver http://www.androidcentral.com/android-silver
      - remir 9y ago
        Didn't last very long, unfortunately. I think it's because the average consumer doesn't even know what Android is and a lot of folks buy their phone at their carrier's store. In other words, there wasn't enough people that cared about this stuff to be viable.
    - icebraining 9y ago
      Isn't that Nexus/Pixel?
      - remir 9y ago
- jsz0 9y ago
  > Do vendors actually want to let users update the software on their devices though? Apple does because they can still generate revenue off old devices via AppStore sales and services. Also used / hand-me-down iPhones expand their user base by serving the low-end of the market. Android OEM's on the other hand get basically nothing from Google and don't want desirable used / hand-me-down devices devaluing their own low-end models. They can't even try to negotiate a more sustainable arrangement with Google because there's no viable alternatives to Android.
scotu 9y ago
that's cute. It's like Google doesn't get that hardware manufacturers need to sell you hardware... Am I missing something?
- dukoid 9y ago
  I assume you are implying that if the software can be updated, there would be no need for new hardware. Yet, for Apple, the opposite seems to be true :)
  - laumars 9y ago
    Apple is an edge case in so many ways that Android OEMs differ: * Apple has a greater following of "must have the latest" consumers than most Android OEMs put together * Apple makes money from the app store. Both selling apps and developers submitting apps that expose cool new features in iOS. * Apple can release iOS updates that coincide with newer handsets but with software features only exposed in the newer hardware. Which also helps with the adoption of newer hardware.
  - wvenable 9y ago
    Apple is smart -- they sell one version of their phone -- all the price differentiation comes from continuing to sell last years model (and the year before that, and so on). Compare that to Samsung: they have high end phones, mid-range phones, and low-end phones in addition to last year's model.
  - scotu 9y ago
    to be clear I don't agree with this hw manufacturers. Yet they assume what you were implying. And their products are not the same as apple's
- bitmapbrother 9y ago
  Yeah, repeat and new customers buying your products because you support them and having existing customers recommended them to their friends and family.
TwoNineA 9y ago
You can't fix a business/greed problem with technology.
- wmf 9y ago
  This is true, but Google may have more leverage than they think. If the phone vendors don't like the direction of Android what are they going to do, switch to Windows/Tizen/webOS/FirefoxOS?
- madez 9y ago
  You are wrong. Sometimes it is possible, sometimes it is not.
- usrusr 9y ago
  Only it the technology pretends that business/greed somehow does not apply. Google could make selling updates on the Play store an optional part of treble, problem fixed.
ReverseCold 9y ago
Took them long enough.
julioneander 9y ago
If Google actually implements a way of pushing those underlying Android updates directly to the phones then I think they might actually be successful. If Google end up still relying on the manufactures and carriers to push those updates out, then what incentive will they have to keep the phones updated?
- dmitrygr 9y ago
  If we're lucky - consumer pressure.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    An almost nonexistent percentage of users know what version of Android they have or if it's the latest, in the grand scheme of things. In the tech bubble, it's hard to imagine, but I'd go so far as to suggest most Android users don't know they run Android. If people realized how many security risks they open themselves up to by running old Android versions and that the "your phone is up to date" line in their Settings app is basically a lie, Android would not be the dominant platform on earth.
    - UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
      By contrast many iOS users do know which version and the media reports on releases. One could argue that this is the power of releasing to millions of devices concurrently, as opposed to spread out over sometimes years like Android. Windows Phone had issues but updates was not one of them and you knew which release you were on them too.
      - bitmapbrother 9y ago
        Of course Windows Phone had update problems. Carriers would hold back or not even release updates. And then there was Microsoft who was osborning their OS's and phones.
        9y ago
dmitrygr 9y ago
This removes one of the main excuses various vendors use for not providing Android updates. I truly hope this works in helping users always be up to date.
neuromancer2701 9y ago
This would seem to allow security updates at a faster rate, but the linux kernel will forever be abandoned to hardware vendor whims aka still on 3.10.X
- pritambaral 9y ago
  It seems they're making the vendors push their kernel patches into AOSP. From TFA: " In addition to the architectural changes, we're working with our silicon and device partners to take their code changes, such as features for a carrier network in a specific country, and move them into the common Android Open Source Project (AOSP) codebase. For example, Sony and Qualcomm contributed dozens of features and hundreds of bugfixes to Android O so they no longer need to rework these patches with each new release of Android. "
  - neuromancer2701 9y ago
    So is this a way around mainlining all of the silicon vendor's various kernels? I have heard that each vendor just hacks their hardware into the 3.10.X and then just keeps a repo of it to meet open source requirements. Because they are unable to make the quality requirements to get their code upstream.
    - makomk 9y ago
      By the time anyone can get all the code required to support a modern SoC upstream in Linux, it's already obsolete.
    - petecox 9y ago
      Perhaps it's time for a Halium/libhybris approach. If I understand correctly, Ubuntu Touch and other GNU/Linux platforms would use an upstream kernel (4.x) to boot a device and delegate to an lxc container to pull in only whatever binary-blob hardware support from a 3.10 Android kernel was necessary.
sandGorgon 9y ago
is this a hypervisor ? I'm kinding of wondering about the abstractions here... is this replacing the bootloader with a kind of bootloader+hypervisor and the actual OS loads on top of the hypervisor ? Their abstraction with the camera2 and hal3 was a small step in this direction. any camera with these abstractions would be able to use RAW imaging.
- EddieRingle 9y ago
  Nope, they've introduced a HIDL for defining hardware interfaces. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385 which I posted back in March.
chrisballinger 9y ago
Would this help projects like LineageOS (formerly Cyanogenmod) maintain ongoing support for older devices?
- ethbro 9y ago
  If all the vendor crap and secret drivers are abstracted out sufficiently, yes.
  - petecox 9y ago
    The bottom diagram suggests that the 'Android OS framework' could be made device independent, with Lineage OS only responsible for maintaining the 'Original vendor implementation'. A 'ROM' could then be split into 2 - the core system and the userspace running on top, with potentially the latter maintained by Google's AOSP across all devices.
- joshmarinacci 9y ago
  Hopefully. A lot will depend on the license around the test suite. This held back alt-java for a long time.
ocdtrekkie 9y ago
It's incredible to me how long it took Google to realize this was their fault. A lot of people here have bought the "blame the OEM" nonsense for a really long time, and you can see the comments here reflect that. But in reality, there's a huge expense to all the work of updating devices to support Google's rapid change cycle for dozens or hundreds of different models, and the problem stems first and foremost from that lack of abstraction layer. This is likely a first step to finally catching up to Windows Mobile: Making the core OS upgrade come straight from the actual OS developer, so that the company that writes the code is actually the one that updates the code.
- therealmarv 9y ago
  Well I can blame OEM because I never asked for special features and skins on top of Android. I want stock Android and stock should be easier to update. Speaking about testing of updates: I'm sure this abstraction layer will not reduce the testing time and it will only slightly reduce the release time of new version.
  - ocdtrekkie 9y ago
    There's no such thing as "stock Android" from an update distribution view. Each Android release, currently, has to be custom-fitted to each given hardware model. That is the problem being solved here, and it's not the OEM's fault, it's the architectural design of Android itself, which is changing.
    - nileshtrivedi 9y ago
      It's not just Android design's fault though. ARM does not have the equivalent of Bios for hardware discovery and initialization. So you can't have a generic OS image to be installed on any device.
  - MBCook 9y ago
    > Well I can blame OEM because I never asked for special features and skins on top of Android. Did you buy an Android phone? Then it wasn't enough pressure. There simply aren't enough people in the market who care about this to put much pressure on phone companies. Basically EVERYONE has a phone, and since almost none of them know about this issue they'll always make the purchases of people who do care a rounding error on the books. Just like the 'I need a removable battery' or 'I want a hardware keyboard' people. They're real groups, but they have little sway in the market compared to the people who are indifferent (or at least willing to accept the trade-off grudgingly) so they don't get much traction.
cwyers 9y ago
I am amused that their graphical representation of the Android version customized for a particular model of phone is "Android mascot dressed up in a really cool spacesuit looking thing" and not "Android mascot with bags of trash stapled haphazardly to him," which would probably be more accurate.
- codefined 9y ago
  Some of them are actually rather nice, I really enjoy OxygenOS for example (the vendor OS for OnePlus phones). It just seems that a lot of the awful OS' are delivered by the larger companies.
- deleted 9y ago
  [deleted]
- duncanawoods 9y ago
  > really cool spacesuit looking thing Look closer - its a fetching combo of fanny pack, boxer shorts, ice skates, ski goggles etc. pretty much the crap you wanted.
  - kbutler 9y ago
    That's really awesome - thanks for making me go back and actually look at it. Upvoted the grandparent, just to keep it high in the list so that your comment would stay near the top of the page...
deleted 9y ago
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therealmarv 9y ago
Maybe we can benefit from this in 2 or 3 years? I'm very pessimistic... it takes LOOOOOOONG before vendors will look into Android O and the interfaces and the first generation benefiting from this will be earliest Android P updates. And do not forget: This whole process does not reduce testing time and the carriers might also look for long testing on updates ;)
- Jabbles 9y ago
  It sounds like the vendor abstraction layer will make things a lot simpler for manufacturers and vendors, so the cost savings alone should tempt them. I'm not sure, but couldn't this benefit vendors/manufacturers/users upgrading to O? Also, remember that manufacturers have probably known about this for a while.
  - cpeterso 9y ago
    An improved vendor abstraction layer might make porting easier but it still doesn't provide any incentive for vendors to actually update old devices. :(
pasbesoin 9y ago
"...they'll be no [Treble] at all!" -- Scotty, in The Trouble With Tribbles What was the previous "vendor integration" initiative? How long did it last? Two years? Or was it one. Lack of vendor buy-in. Combined with Google's ADHD project support. Nice idea, but color me skeptical. I don't see anything that hints at a change in the fundamental cost/benefit that's driving the current mess. Maybe I'm just projecting cynicism, because I'd actually like to be proven wrong. And bad press seems to be the only external influence on Google, that actually gets through.
bsharitt 9y ago
Neat, Google has release this years fix for Android updates. I can't wait to see what next years fix looks like.
tarikozket 9y ago
Seems like Google is trying not to lose Samsung: https://9to5google.com/2016/06/13/report-claims-that-samsung-is-considering-moving-all-of-its-devices-to-tizen/ https://9to5google.com/2016/06/13/report-claims-that-samsung...
- Jabbles 9y ago
  Maybe, but https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/samsungs-tizen-is-riddled-with-security-flaws-amateurishly-written/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/samsungs-tizen-is-ri...
- endorphone 9y ago
  That article is nonsense. Google is doing what they can to clean up the code base and separate concerns. Clearly many vendors have a technical problem merging their own changes with updated versions, and we've seen time and time again that vendors make promises -- they have the will -- that they don't live up to because they don't have the means.
deleted 9y ago
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sorenjan 9y ago
Finally, can't believe it took them this long. The sorry state of the update situation is one of the worst things about Android. Next step would probably be to provide an API to the OEMs so they can add their "value add" functionality as apps, so Google can push updates to all phones regardless of hardware drivers and OEM modifications. And maybe make it possible to update emoji via the Play store, instead of needing a new system update. I don't like the blank boxes in messages from my iOS friends. I wonder if this means that Google will lead by example and prolong the time they deliver updates to their own phones. They don't guarantee new updates to their current Pixel phones after October 2018 [0], which is not good enough. [0] https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en
- pjmlp 9y ago
  It is an illusion to think this will ever change, if Google doesn't make it legally binding to having updates in place to access Google Play Services for example. There are no incentives in place for doing otherwise. Already in the old days, Nokia was one of the very few manufacturers that bothered to provide firmware updates, and even then usually only once.
  - microcolonel 9y ago
    > Already in the old days, Nokia was one of the very few manufacturers that bothered to provide firmware updates, and even then usually only once. When you put it that way, it seems like it's gotten a lot better.
  - sorenjan 9y ago
    If Google makes it easier for manufacturers to make phones that can be updated OTA by Google than phones that can not (custom Android builds) most of them would probably do so. Have a hardware layer, an Android system layer, an OEM layer, and have a clear interface between them so they can be updated independently. Then Google should push updates themselves, they can't leave that to phone manufacturers or carriers, like you said, there's no incentives for them to do so. Of course, this has been an issue for Android since day one, so I wont hold my breath. Are there any work done on a system similar to the one on PC, where software can enumerate available hardware? We have advanced computers in our pockets, but they can't be updated to a new OS version as easy as a 15 year old PC. It's ridiculous.
joshmarinacci 9y ago
I think this will be pretty successful. Ultimately the manufacturers want to do as little software work as possible. If Project Treble gives them easier/less work to do, then they will adopt it quickly.
drewg123 9y ago
How much of the update problem is due to vendor customized UIs and apps, and how much is due to not upstreaming driver support for their hardware? Which of these problems will Project Treble solve? Eg, have they actually added a stable driver KBI? Or pushed drivers to userspace? Or is this just about GUIs?
blinkingled 9y ago
So this will get users on to the next Android Framework version but if there are security bugs in vendor implementation or underlying firmware it'll still continue to be problematic for users. But it will solve the PR problem for Google if OEMs and Carriers update the framework version quick enough - the question raised mostly by tech pundits - when am I going to get the next update to Android - will have a satisfactory answer. Not to say this isn't a huge step forward from status quo - if vendors contribute features and fixes to MediaServer and everybody uses the same implementation it will be much easier to update it for all vendors. What still sucks is this is not going to be Google that will update the Android framework - it's still OEMs and the carriers.
exabrial 9y ago
speaking of Android: How about switching to the JVM/OpenJDK to keep pace with modern Java? Maybe deliver CDI as a standard feature? Also, how about using cgroups instead of the custom security model? Maybe we could get reuse out of Google's security patches for Linux, and they could benefit more from the community.
- kllrnohj 9y ago
  > speaking of Android: How about switching to the JVM/OpenJDK to keep pace with modern Java? They did that already. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/android-n-switches-to-openjdk-google-tells-oracle-it-is-protected-by-the-gpl/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/android-n-switch... Well, they switched the library to OpenJDK. The runtime is still ART, but that's probably for the best as the runtime balance decisions made by hotspot are definitely not suitable for phones, and ART is pretty good these days anyway. And you can use Java 8 stuff: https://developer.android.com/studio/preview/features/java8-support.html https://developer.android.com/studio/preview/features/java8-... some of which is even fully backwards compatible (like lambdas) > Also, how about using cgroups instead of the custom security model? Maybe we could get reuse out of Google's security patches for Linux, and they could benefit more from the community. Android has always used cgroups. cgroups are not a security mechanism, though, it's for resource allocation. Regardless Android makes use of cgroups, cpusets, selinux, etc... That's all unrelated to the permission model, though, which more or less doesn't exist on desktop platforms.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Actually the reality is a bit different than those marketing articles. They started to cherry pick library implementations from OpenJDK, but achieving feature parity is certainly not something they care about. Anyone can easily check the AOSP commits to see exactly that. https://android.googlesource.com/platform/libcore/ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/libcore/ https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/q/status:open+openjdk https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/q/status:open+open...
    - 9y ago
demarq 9y ago
"device makers can choose to deliver a new Android Update" ... "can choose". Preferably they shouldn't be able to choose. Google should be in charge of updates and manufacturers should have to make a special effort to prevent an update. i.e if they are certain that an update will brick their device they would then make a formal request to google not to send the update to their devices.
- sigmar 9y ago
  Agreed. Updating the phone being easier won't solve the problem. The problem is a mismatch in incentives. Manufacturers don't have an incentive to update older devices because (1) they don't want to put any resources into last year's phone and (2) they want their customers to upgrade to their newly released phone.
  - usrusr 9y ago
    Still waiting for a phone brand to bite the bullet and offer paid updates. Because it's either that or no updates. I know what I would prefer.
    - 0xFFC 9y ago
      Good idea. It fits now more than ever. I have said this before. Right now SoC's are passed the threshold performance wise. For e.g if you are not into playing high end games your phone cpu is enough for 5 year if you only doing web browsing watching movies and reading mails.
    - voltagex_ 9y ago
      It still won't solve the "Qualcomm won't update the BSP" issue, though.
      - swiley 9y ago
        This right here! Closed SOC BSPs that are tied to android are the real problem! If google had stuck with the standard Linux APIs or added appropriate new one when they needed them and where more strict about open software we wouldn't be in this mess.
EddieRingle 9y ago
I discovered this back in March. This is pretty exciting! Now all we need is to have Google distribute the framework over the Play Store instead of relying on OTAs, and all will be right with the world. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385
slackstation 9y ago
This should usher in a new era of cheap phones that upgrade immediately to the newest version of the Android OS. It lowers the price floor for a shiny new phone. All of these additional features are expensive to create but, they are differentiators. With this, Google has the ability to push more new features on the base OS. By conforming to this standard, Google make it easier for them to compete with all of these manufacturers' features. Now it's up to them to make compelling reasons to upgrade their phones beyond apps. I see things like Google Assistant, Mapping, etc. being more integrated into the OS so that you are always in the Google system no matter what app you are currently in. This is a big and brilliant win if they can first pull it off technically and then pull it off with compelling services. They certainly look like they are investing heavily in both. I look forward to a $99 or $199 (or $49 if you can stomach sketchy Chinese phones) phone that just keeps getting better and better and better for free as long as the phone works. This also makes a very compelling thing to make the phone into a computer once the battery can't hold a charge, etc. Take the guts or use some kind of USB->HDMI out and make it into a TV app or a digital mirror or another internet station somewhere. Brilliant move Google.
- smichel17 9y ago
  > I see things like Google Assistant, Mapping, etc. being more integrated into the OS so that you are always in the Google system no matter what app you are currently in. No thank you. I use Android because it's a free and open system.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Given the lack of updates and the missing parts on AOSP source tree, that is a fallacy.
cjhanks 9y ago
It is my opinion that Google does not view Android as simply "an operating system for phones". Android has tremendous application in IoT devices and appliances. The lifecycle of many applications is quite a bit longer than the cell phone. As we see an increase in the diversity of applications using Android, this upgrade path will be very important. Just wait until you see your first ATM or POS system "Powered By Android ©".
- swiley 9y ago
  The only two reasons people put up with android on phones are 1) it's the only choice if you want something small with a cell modem 2) it's the only choice if you want to run Snapchat Android is incredibly aweful. It's actually impossible to write apps for it that won't crash. If you're writing firmware it's even worse! Have you ever tried to build it? It's a nightmare! The source for a basic system is over 60GB and has a crazy number of dependencies. For embedded systems/IOT you're thousands of times better off just using buildroot or an RTOS.
  - pjmlp 9y ago
    Which is why I cannot understand what Google is expecting people will do with Android Things, given the boards it runs on. A general purpose GNU/Linux distribution, with <place your favourite language here>, is a much saner approach for any developer. It is even possible to run with Java 9, something that Android (or its Things variant) probably will never support.
  - cjhanks 9y ago
    Well, is it really much worse than Windows CE?
    - swiley 9y ago
      That's like comparing shooting yourself in the foot to shooting yourself in the head. There's no reason for either!
amluto 9y ago
One potential side benefit of this type of work: vendor kernel drivers tend to be insecure buggy pieces of crap. Vendor Treble drivers will surely still be insecure buggy pieces of crap, but they might be sandboxable. If Google really has its eyes on the Magenta kernel, I imagine that Treble will be runnable in user mode, so I bet it really will be sandboxed. This would be a huge win.
asciimo 9y ago
I wonder if this will make it easier to circumvent the vendor layer entirely--jailbreak without replacing the OS?
afeezaziz 9y ago
For someone that is considering Android, coming from iOS, this is a brilliant idea that should have been implemented long ago. For example, a lot of Android phones are running 4.4 and 5.0 in this part of the world. Those versions are pretty bad and the people that bought Android 4.4 and 5.0 actually do not know what they are missing and how to actually update their OS since there is no way for them to do that for now. I hope that with this Treble, there will be a lot more Android phones(from Chinese makers) that can update base Android OS to the latest one much more frequently.
ibic 9y ago
Android finally adapted the approach of Windows on PC - OS maker dictates the software pieces on all devices, the device makers only create the hardware and write drivers (optionally, some bloatware). I believe this is the right/better approach, and it solves no only the Android update hassle, but more importantly the fragmentation issue.

419 points by chickenbane 9y ago

Do vendors actually want to let users update the software on their devices though? I would have thought new shiny software was a nice incentive to get customers to upgrade to a new phone?

jeron 9y ago
customers would be more inclined to buy from a vendor that does use Treble
- Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
  By this logic, shouldn't the Nexus/Pixel phones be a lot more popular than they are?
  - s73ver 9y ago
    They can't become popular if they're difficult to buy.
    - therealmarv 9y ago
      exactly
  - croon 9y ago
    I haven't looked at the numbers, but they're unavailable in a lot of countries, and are kind of expensive since a few generations.
  - therealmarv 9y ago
    End customers don't even know that Nexus/Pixel phones exist (because you mostly cannot buy them everywhere) and they don't know the benefit from such devices and they also don't care deeply enough.
    - Mister_Snuggles 9y ago
      I agree that the Nexus phones are advertised poorly, but the Pixels have a lot of advertising in the carrier's stores here in Canada. The Rogers where I got my last phone, for example, had a dedicated display in the middle of the store for the Pixel phones.
      - prophesi 9y ago
        There's also the issue that the Nexus line were perfect budget phones, while the Pixels are high-end. So even with much better advertising, cost becomes the Pixels barrier to entry.
        GordonS 9y ago
        Totally agree with this. Nexus was good performance for an affordable price. Pixel is so much more expensive that Nexus owners are likely to balk at the price tag.
      - Eridrus 9y ago
        And Google can't keep up with demand for Pixels: http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/14/nearly-5-months-google-still-cant-keep-pixel-stock/ http://www.androidpolice.com/2017/03/14/nearly-5-months-goog...
  - archvile 9y ago
    They might be, if people actually knew that they existed...
  - joshmarinacci 9y ago
    The way people buy phones is a lot more complicated. Most people pick a carrier first, and then the phone; and most people buy their phone from their carrier store (or a carrier booth at a place like Costco). Thus the consumer choices are controlled by the carrier. If a carrier doesn't want to sell a Pixel phone, then few will be sold, regardless of what consumers might 'want'. Apple is obviously an exception to this due to their own advertising and stores.
    - deleted 9y ago
      [deleted]
    - pjmlp 9y ago
      Not in Europe, generally. Most countries have more pre-paid users than on contracts, so we get our phones from computer or phone stores instead of carrier stores.
  - petecox 9y ago
    Even Google abandons their products after a couple of releases. Perhaps better supported than other manufacturers but I'm running 7.1.2 on a Nexus 4 only through Lineage OS.
- MBCook 9y ago
  Would they? Or would 99% of them not know about this kind of stuff until it was too late? A huge percent of people with Android phones think they're Google phones (not Motorola or Huawei or Acer or whatever), so if they decide to avoid their old 'brand' wouldn't they try to avoid Android? Of course if they know they have a Samsung they can avoid that, but... This is what, the third or fourth try at fixing this problem? It needs fixing, but I'm rather skeptical at this point. Just because the hardware interface doesn't need to be re-created doesn't mean the vendors will ship updates. It will just be waiting on something else like vendor/carrier software customization that they're not going to bother with because they'd rather work on the new model. Good luck Google. This would be a great thing for everyone. I just don't hold much hope.
jm_l 9y ago
Companies are incentivized in the long term to make good products. This incentive usually eclipses incentives that our (often justified) anti-corporate suspicions invent.
- bluehazed 9y ago
  Judging by the sheer number of devices running outdated Android versions and the consumer unfriendly tactics such as locked bootloaders, carrier-locked modems, bloatware, and sometimes even tracking software (fair to call this spyware?) employed by carriers and manufacturers I'd say that incentive to produce good products rarely eclipses these supposedly "invented" negative incentives. That said, Treble looks like a good step in the right direction. Maybe things will improve in the future.
- GordonS 9y ago
  I'd like to believe that. But profits rule. Smartphone usage must be pretty close to saturation point, in the developed world at least. Samsung, Apple etc release a new, expensive device every year, and it's natural that they are going to want existing customers to upgrade. I think the only way Android users (of non-Google devices, that is) are going to get software upgrades is if Google somehow forces vendors to do it.
  - petra 9y ago
    It might be enough for a single vendor to "break ranks" and go with treble to have a decent effect. Xiaomi did so with their large batteries, for example.
    - GordonS 9y ago
      I'm more an Android guy, so I don't have an iPhone (except for testing on mobile apps I'm working on), and so I don't know what the update situation is like. But my (limited!) understanding is that when they release new iOS versions they are available at least a couple of generations back - is that correct? Or if you buy a network locked phone is it up to the network?
ethbro 9y ago
We'll find out when the first vendor inevitably abuses a feature in the interface to specifically make their phone un-upgradable.
- Godel_unicode 9y ago
  > un-upgradable. I believe you mean "differentiated" :)
  - madez 9y ago
    Product differentiation is an underestimated evil of our time.
    - mtgx 9y ago
      Some would argue it was what killed Nokia, too. It chose to go with Windows Phone to "be different", even though Android and iOS were already established and WP didn't have much of a market share.
      - digi_owl 9y ago
        It was pretty much what strangled the community efforts surrounding Maemo as well. Core pieces of early Maemo, like power management, was closed source, for "differentiation".
- sowbug 9y ago
  VTS is meant to address that concern.
skdotdan 9y ago
They definitely want to be able to do so in a fast, cheap way. Another thing is whether they will actually be fair with the updates, but I'm sure that Project Treble will reduce Android's fragmentation.
deleted 9y ago
[deleted]
kllrnohj 9y ago
It's worth keeping in mind which vendors are being talked about here. Treble fixes the problem of "manufacturer who didn't do any customization can't update because Qualcomm never updated their drivers & friends" by ensuring that the level that the Qualcomms, Nvidias, etc... build against is forwards-compatible. So small manufacturer can just take a new android source drop from google and plop it on top of the binaries they originally got from qualcomm or whoever and tada! done. It doesn't help with the "OEM injected so much 'customization' that it's a disaster to move forward and will forever be abandonware"
- zanny 9y ago
  If only a project existed to support devices beyond what the original manufacturers were willing to put out with singular consistent releases across all hardware. Oh yeah, Lineage. If only the company that made the OS actually supported the effort to perpetually support devices with a single OS the way Android should have been from day 1.
  - oridecon 9y ago
    The problem is that you have to trust Lineage's (just an example) developers and release process. If you want Google Apps installed you need to trust another 3rd party like http://opengapps.org http://opengapps.org or https://microg.org/ https://microg.org/. At this point I'm not so sure what's better: an updated OS or one full of known exploits.
    - zifnab06 9y ago
      Why wouldn't they be trustable? You always have the option of building it yourself. (disclaimer, I'm one of the leads & run their infrastructure)
      - oridecon 9y ago
        Like I said, it was just an example. I don't have the time or knowledge to review an entire custom ISO and after that another ISO from the Gapps provider that I choose. I'm sure there are some tricks to cut down the review process time but anyway. It's a trade-off. I'm installing custom software to improve security, but at the same time, can I trust that this solution won't be a source of malware? I hope this didn't came out as accusatory, I was just trying to show another aspect of using custom ROMs.
maxsilver 9y ago
Not every vendor has an 18 month refresh cycle -- not everyone is just selling disposable phones and tablets A lot of people want longer Android support -- especially enterprise installations, which want to pay for software on 4-8 year hardware cycles, but the short length of Android's current support prevents them from doing this. There are lots of Qualcomm / Freescale chips running Android inside Airplane Seatbacks, and Hotel Kiosks, and Business Wall Signage, and more that simply will not be replaced for many many years. Today, Board OEMs are essentially forbidden from updating these, even if they want to (since Qualcomm / Freescale won't release the tools they need). After Treble, OEM Vendors will at least have the option of updating these devices, even without Qualcomm / Freescale / etc's permission.
- GordonS 9y ago
  Yes, enterprise-size companies want this, especially with regards to security. But companies of that size buy Samsung or/and Apple (in general, I'm sure there are exceptions). Now, with the prices of these devices they are not exactly what I would call 'disposable', but (for Samsung at least, I can't say for Apple) update availability is highly dependant on the network carrier. I think Google needs to somehow force the availability of updates, regardless of whether the vendor wants to use updated software as a selling point for their latest phone - maybe Treble is a step towards that.
  - maxsilver 9y ago
    > But companies of that size buy Samsung or/and Apple (in general, I'm sure there are exceptions). That's not really what I'm talking about. I'm not talking about corporate issued Samsung Galaxy Tablets. I'm talking about Android embedded into other products. Companies, of any size, don't buy Samsung or Apple for this because neither of those companies really exist in those markets at all. I'm talking about devices like the Delta Kiosk you use to print your Airline tickets. The self-service checkout machine you use at WalMart. The LCD panel in the wall of an corporate HQ that shows all Outlook meetings scheduled in that room. The newer Smart TVs in Hotel Rooms that let you order pay-per-view and food to your room's bill. Many of those devices also run Android, and have no upgrade path even though their OEMs desperately want one. Project Treble helps them out, even more so than it might for smaller phone companies (like say HTC).
neogodless 9y ago
If we look back through history, we'll see Compaq computers with awful software pre-installed... even bundles including ISP software (AOL, Juno, anyone?) But then we started to see Signature edition computers without bloatware (and Microsoft moving to make it easier to remove the extra software.) We can only hope that phones follow this trajectory. And maybe more quickly, as they can learn from the past. Sure, computer manufacturers liked new versions of Windows pushing computer purchases, but now we're at a point where Windows 10 exists, and updates are something not even the consumer can block.
- remir 9y ago
  A "Signature Edition" of Android would be interesting.
  - happycube 9y ago
    They did that for a while with Google Play Editions...
    - danieldk 9y ago
      Indeed. And supposedly, the Android Silver program was going to continue this [1], but failed. [1] http://www.androidcentral.com/android-silver http://www.androidcentral.com/android-silver
    - remir 9y ago
      Didn't last very long, unfortunately. I think it's because the average consumer doesn't even know what Android is and a lot of folks buy their phone at their carrier's store. In other words, there wasn't enough people that cared about this stuff to be viable.
  - icebraining 9y ago
    Isn't that Nexus/Pixel?
    - remir 9y ago
jsz0 9y ago
> Do vendors actually want to let users update the software on their devices though? Apple does because they can still generate revenue off old devices via AppStore sales and services. Also used / hand-me-down iPhones expand their user base by serving the low-end of the market. Android OEM's on the other hand get basically nothing from Google and don't want desirable used / hand-me-down devices devaluing their own low-end models. They can't even try to negotiate a more sustainable arrangement with Google because there's no viable alternatives to Android.

scotu 9y ago

that's cute. It's like Google doesn't get that hardware manufacturers need to sell you hardware... Am I missing something?

dukoid 9y ago
I assume you are implying that if the software can be updated, there would be no need for new hardware. Yet, for Apple, the opposite seems to be true :)
- laumars 9y ago
  Apple is an edge case in so many ways that Android OEMs differ: * Apple has a greater following of "must have the latest" consumers than most Android OEMs put together * Apple makes money from the app store. Both selling apps and developers submitting apps that expose cool new features in iOS. * Apple can release iOS updates that coincide with newer handsets but with software features only exposed in the newer hardware. Which also helps with the adoption of newer hardware.
- wvenable 9y ago
  Apple is smart -- they sell one version of their phone -- all the price differentiation comes from continuing to sell last years model (and the year before that, and so on). Compare that to Samsung: they have high end phones, mid-range phones, and low-end phones in addition to last year's model.
- scotu 9y ago
  to be clear I don't agree with this hw manufacturers. Yet they assume what you were implying. And their products are not the same as apple's
bitmapbrother 9y ago
Yeah, repeat and new customers buying your products because you support them and having existing customers recommended them to their friends and family.

TwoNineA 9y ago

You can't fix a business/greed problem with technology.

wmf 9y ago
This is true, but Google may have more leverage than they think. If the phone vendors don't like the direction of Android what are they going to do, switch to Windows/Tizen/webOS/FirefoxOS?
madez 9y ago
You are wrong. Sometimes it is possible, sometimes it is not.
usrusr 9y ago
Only it the technology pretends that business/greed somehow does not apply. Google could make selling updates on the Play store an optional part of treble, problem fixed.

ReverseCold 9y ago

Took them long enough.

julioneander 9y ago

If Google actually implements a way of pushing those underlying Android updates directly to the phones then I think they might actually be successful. If Google end up still relying on the manufactures and carriers to push those updates out, then what incentive will they have to keep the phones updated?

dmitrygr 9y ago
If we're lucky - consumer pressure.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  An almost nonexistent percentage of users know what version of Android they have or if it's the latest, in the grand scheme of things. In the tech bubble, it's hard to imagine, but I'd go so far as to suggest most Android users don't know they run Android. If people realized how many security risks they open themselves up to by running old Android versions and that the "your phone is up to date" line in their Settings app is basically a lie, Android would not be the dominant platform on earth.
  - UnoriginalGuy 9y ago
    By contrast many iOS users do know which version and the media reports on releases. One could argue that this is the power of releasing to millions of devices concurrently, as opposed to spread out over sometimes years like Android. Windows Phone had issues but updates was not one of them and you knew which release you were on them too.
    - bitmapbrother 9y ago
      Of course Windows Phone had update problems. Carriers would hold back or not even release updates. And then there was Microsoft who was osborning their OS's and phones.
      - 9y ago

dmitrygr 9y ago

This removes one of the main excuses various vendors use for not providing Android updates. I truly hope this works in helping users always be up to date.

neuromancer2701 9y ago

This would seem to allow security updates at a faster rate, but the linux kernel will forever be abandoned to hardware vendor whims aka still on 3.10.X

pritambaral 9y ago
It seems they're making the vendors push their kernel patches into AOSP. From TFA: " In addition to the architectural changes, we're working with our silicon and device partners to take their code changes, such as features for a carrier network in a specific country, and move them into the common Android Open Source Project (AOSP) codebase. For example, Sony and Qualcomm contributed dozens of features and hundreds of bugfixes to Android O so they no longer need to rework these patches with each new release of Android. "
- neuromancer2701 9y ago
  So is this a way around mainlining all of the silicon vendor's various kernels? I have heard that each vendor just hacks their hardware into the 3.10.X and then just keeps a repo of it to meet open source requirements. Because they are unable to make the quality requirements to get their code upstream.
  - makomk 9y ago
    By the time anyone can get all the code required to support a modern SoC upstream in Linux, it's already obsolete.
  - petecox 9y ago
    Perhaps it's time for a Halium/libhybris approach. If I understand correctly, Ubuntu Touch and other GNU/Linux platforms would use an upstream kernel (4.x) to boot a device and delegate to an lxc container to pull in only whatever binary-blob hardware support from a 3.10 Android kernel was necessary.

sandGorgon 9y ago

is this a hypervisor ? I'm kinding of wondering about the abstractions here... is this replacing the bootloader with a kind of bootloader+hypervisor and the actual OS loads on top of the hypervisor ? Their abstraction with the camera2 and hal3 was a small step in this direction. any camera with these abstractions would be able to use RAW imaging.

EddieRingle 9y ago
Nope, they've introduced a HIDL for defining hardware interfaces. See https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385 which I posted back in March.

chrisballinger 9y ago

Would this help projects like LineageOS (formerly Cyanogenmod) maintain ongoing support for older devices?

ethbro 9y ago
If all the vendor crap and secret drivers are abstracted out sufficiently, yes.
- petecox 9y ago
  The bottom diagram suggests that the 'Android OS framework' could be made device independent, with Lineage OS only responsible for maintaining the 'Original vendor implementation'. A 'ROM' could then be split into 2 - the core system and the userspace running on top, with potentially the latter maintained by Google's AOSP across all devices.
joshmarinacci 9y ago
Hopefully. A lot will depend on the license around the test suite. This held back alt-java for a long time.

ocdtrekkie 9y ago

It's incredible to me how long it took Google to realize this was their fault. A lot of people here have bought the "blame the OEM" nonsense for a really long time, and you can see the comments here reflect that. But in reality, there's a huge expense to all the work of updating devices to support Google's rapid change cycle for dozens or hundreds of different models, and the problem stems first and foremost from that lack of abstraction layer. This is likely a first step to finally catching up to Windows Mobile: Making the core OS upgrade come straight from the actual OS developer, so that the company that writes the code is actually the one that updates the code.

therealmarv 9y ago
Well I can blame OEM because I never asked for special features and skins on top of Android. I want stock Android and stock should be easier to update. Speaking about testing of updates: I'm sure this abstraction layer will not reduce the testing time and it will only slightly reduce the release time of new version.
- ocdtrekkie 9y ago
  There's no such thing as "stock Android" from an update distribution view. Each Android release, currently, has to be custom-fitted to each given hardware model. That is the problem being solved here, and it's not the OEM's fault, it's the architectural design of Android itself, which is changing.
  - nileshtrivedi 9y ago
    It's not just Android design's fault though. ARM does not have the equivalent of Bios for hardware discovery and initialization. So you can't have a generic OS image to be installed on any device.
- MBCook 9y ago
  > Well I can blame OEM because I never asked for special features and skins on top of Android. Did you buy an Android phone? Then it wasn't enough pressure. There simply aren't enough people in the market who care about this to put much pressure on phone companies. Basically EVERYONE has a phone, and since almost none of them know about this issue they'll always make the purchases of people who do care a rounding error on the books. Just like the 'I need a removable battery' or 'I want a hardware keyboard' people. They're real groups, but they have little sway in the market compared to the people who are indifferent (or at least willing to accept the trade-off grudgingly) so they don't get much traction.

cwyers 9y ago

I am amused that their graphical representation of the Android version customized for a particular model of phone is "Android mascot dressed up in a really cool spacesuit looking thing" and not "Android mascot with bags of trash stapled haphazardly to him," which would probably be more accurate.

codefined 9y ago
Some of them are actually rather nice, I really enjoy OxygenOS for example (the vendor OS for OnePlus phones). It just seems that a lot of the awful OS' are delivered by the larger companies.
deleted 9y ago
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duncanawoods 9y ago
> really cool spacesuit looking thing Look closer - its a fetching combo of fanny pack, boxer shorts, ice skates, ski goggles etc. pretty much the crap you wanted.
- kbutler 9y ago
  That's really awesome - thanks for making me go back and actually look at it. Upvoted the grandparent, just to keep it high in the list so that your comment would stay near the top of the page...

deleted 9y ago

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therealmarv 9y ago

Maybe we can benefit from this in 2 or 3 years? I'm very pessimistic... it takes LOOOOOOONG before vendors will look into Android O and the interfaces and the first generation benefiting from this will be earliest Android P updates. And do not forget: This whole process does not reduce testing time and the carriers might also look for long testing on updates ;)

Jabbles 9y ago
It sounds like the vendor abstraction layer will make things a lot simpler for manufacturers and vendors, so the cost savings alone should tempt them. I'm not sure, but couldn't this benefit vendors/manufacturers/users upgrading to O? Also, remember that manufacturers have probably known about this for a while.
- cpeterso 9y ago
  An improved vendor abstraction layer might make porting easier but it still doesn't provide any incentive for vendors to actually update old devices. :(

pasbesoin 9y ago

"...they'll be no [Treble] at all!" -- Scotty, in The Trouble With Tribbles What was the previous "vendor integration" initiative? How long did it last? Two years? Or was it one. Lack of vendor buy-in. Combined with Google's ADHD project support. Nice idea, but color me skeptical. I don't see anything that hints at a change in the fundamental cost/benefit that's driving the current mess. Maybe I'm just projecting cynicism, because I'd actually like to be proven wrong. And bad press seems to be the only external influence on Google, that actually gets through.

bsharitt 9y ago

Neat, Google has release this years fix for Android updates. I can't wait to see what next years fix looks like.

tarikozket 9y ago

Seems like Google is trying not to lose Samsung: https://9to5google.com/2016/06/13/report-claims-that-samsung-is-considering-moving-all-of-its-devices-to-tizen/ https://9to5google.com/2016/06/13/report-claims-that-samsung...

Jabbles 9y ago
Maybe, but https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/samsungs-tizen-is-riddled-with-security-flaws-amateurishly-written/ https://arstechnica.com/gadgets/2017/04/samsungs-tizen-is-ri...
endorphone 9y ago
That article is nonsense. Google is doing what they can to clean up the code base and separate concerns. Clearly many vendors have a technical problem merging their own changes with updated versions, and we've seen time and time again that vendors make promises -- they have the will -- that they don't live up to because they don't have the means.

deleted 9y ago

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sorenjan 9y ago

Finally, can't believe it took them this long. The sorry state of the update situation is one of the worst things about Android. Next step would probably be to provide an API to the OEMs so they can add their "value add" functionality as apps, so Google can push updates to all phones regardless of hardware drivers and OEM modifications. And maybe make it possible to update emoji via the Play store, instead of needing a new system update. I don't like the blank boxes in messages from my iOS friends. I wonder if this means that Google will lead by example and prolong the time they deliver updates to their own phones. They don't guarantee new updates to their current Pixel phones after October 2018 [0], which is not good enough. [0] https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en https://support.google.com/pixelphone/answer/4457705?hl=en

pjmlp 9y ago
It is an illusion to think this will ever change, if Google doesn't make it legally binding to having updates in place to access Google Play Services for example. There are no incentives in place for doing otherwise. Already in the old days, Nokia was one of the very few manufacturers that bothered to provide firmware updates, and even then usually only once.
- microcolonel 9y ago
  > Already in the old days, Nokia was one of the very few manufacturers that bothered to provide firmware updates, and even then usually only once. When you put it that way, it seems like it's gotten a lot better.
- sorenjan 9y ago
  If Google makes it easier for manufacturers to make phones that can be updated OTA by Google than phones that can not (custom Android builds) most of them would probably do so. Have a hardware layer, an Android system layer, an OEM layer, and have a clear interface between them so they can be updated independently. Then Google should push updates themselves, they can't leave that to phone manufacturers or carriers, like you said, there's no incentives for them to do so. Of course, this has been an issue for Android since day one, so I wont hold my breath. Are there any work done on a system similar to the one on PC, where software can enumerate available hardware? We have advanced computers in our pockets, but they can't be updated to a new OS version as easy as a 15 year old PC. It's ridiculous.

joshmarinacci 9y ago

I think this will be pretty successful. Ultimately the manufacturers want to do as little software work as possible. If Project Treble gives them easier/less work to do, then they will adopt it quickly.

drewg123 9y ago

How much of the update problem is due to vendor customized UIs and apps, and how much is due to not upstreaming driver support for their hardware? Which of these problems will Project Treble solve? Eg, have they actually added a stable driver KBI? Or pushed drivers to userspace? Or is this just about GUIs?

blinkingled 9y ago

So this will get users on to the next Android Framework version but if there are security bugs in vendor implementation or underlying firmware it'll still continue to be problematic for users. But it will solve the PR problem for Google if OEMs and Carriers update the framework version quick enough - the question raised mostly by tech pundits - when am I going to get the next update to Android - will have a satisfactory answer. Not to say this isn't a huge step forward from status quo - if vendors contribute features and fixes to MediaServer and everybody uses the same implementation it will be much easier to update it for all vendors. What still sucks is this is not going to be Google that will update the Android framework - it's still OEMs and the carriers.

exabrial 9y ago

speaking of Android: How about switching to the JVM/OpenJDK to keep pace with modern Java? Maybe deliver CDI as a standard feature? Also, how about using cgroups instead of the custom security model? Maybe we could get reuse out of Google's security patches for Linux, and they could benefit more from the community.

kllrnohj 9y ago
> speaking of Android: How about switching to the JVM/OpenJDK to keep pace with modern Java? They did that already. https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/android-n-switches-to-openjdk-google-tells-oracle-it-is-protected-by-the-gpl/ https://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2016/01/android-n-switch... Well, they switched the library to OpenJDK. The runtime is still ART, but that's probably for the best as the runtime balance decisions made by hotspot are definitely not suitable for phones, and ART is pretty good these days anyway. And you can use Java 8 stuff: https://developer.android.com/studio/preview/features/java8-support.html https://developer.android.com/studio/preview/features/java8-... some of which is even fully backwards compatible (like lambdas) > Also, how about using cgroups instead of the custom security model? Maybe we could get reuse out of Google's security patches for Linux, and they could benefit more from the community. Android has always used cgroups. cgroups are not a security mechanism, though, it's for resource allocation. Regardless Android makes use of cgroups, cpusets, selinux, etc... That's all unrelated to the permission model, though, which more or less doesn't exist on desktop platforms.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Actually the reality is a bit different than those marketing articles. They started to cherry pick library implementations from OpenJDK, but achieving feature parity is certainly not something they care about. Anyone can easily check the AOSP commits to see exactly that. https://android.googlesource.com/platform/libcore/ https://android.googlesource.com/platform/libcore/ https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/q/status:open+openjdk https://android-review.googlesource.com/#/q/status:open+open...
  - 9y ago

demarq 9y ago

"device makers can choose to deliver a new Android Update" ... "can choose". Preferably they shouldn't be able to choose. Google should be in charge of updates and manufacturers should have to make a special effort to prevent an update. i.e if they are certain that an update will brick their device they would then make a formal request to google not to send the update to their devices.

sigmar 9y ago
Agreed. Updating the phone being easier won't solve the problem. The problem is a mismatch in incentives. Manufacturers don't have an incentive to update older devices because (1) they don't want to put any resources into last year's phone and (2) they want their customers to upgrade to their newly released phone.
- usrusr 9y ago
  Still waiting for a phone brand to bite the bullet and offer paid updates. Because it's either that or no updates. I know what I would prefer.
  - 0xFFC 9y ago
    Good idea. It fits now more than ever. I have said this before. Right now SoC's are passed the threshold performance wise. For e.g if you are not into playing high end games your phone cpu is enough for 5 year if you only doing web browsing watching movies and reading mails.
  - voltagex_ 9y ago
    It still won't solve the "Qualcomm won't update the BSP" issue, though.
    - swiley 9y ago
      This right here! Closed SOC BSPs that are tied to android are the real problem! If google had stuck with the standard Linux APIs or added appropriate new one when they needed them and where more strict about open software we wouldn't be in this mess.

EddieRingle 9y ago

I discovered this back in March. This is pretty exciting! Now all we need is to have Google distribute the framework over the Play Store instead of relying on OTAs, and all will be right with the world. https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385 https://news.ycombinator.com/item?id=13928385

slackstation 9y ago

This should usher in a new era of cheap phones that upgrade immediately to the newest version of the Android OS. It lowers the price floor for a shiny new phone. All of these additional features are expensive to create but, they are differentiators. With this, Google has the ability to push more new features on the base OS. By conforming to this standard, Google make it easier for them to compete with all of these manufacturers' features. Now it's up to them to make compelling reasons to upgrade their phones beyond apps. I see things like Google Assistant, Mapping, etc. being more integrated into the OS so that you are always in the Google system no matter what app you are currently in. This is a big and brilliant win if they can first pull it off technically and then pull it off with compelling services. They certainly look like they are investing heavily in both. I look forward to a $99 or $199 (or $49 if you can stomach sketchy Chinese phones) phone that just keeps getting better and better and better for free as long as the phone works. This also makes a very compelling thing to make the phone into a computer once the battery can't hold a charge, etc. Take the guts or use some kind of USB->HDMI out and make it into a TV app or a digital mirror or another internet station somewhere. Brilliant move Google.

smichel17 9y ago
> I see things like Google Assistant, Mapping, etc. being more integrated into the OS so that you are always in the Google system no matter what app you are currently in. No thank you. I use Android because it's a free and open system.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Given the lack of updates and the missing parts on AOSP source tree, that is a fallacy.

cjhanks 9y ago

It is my opinion that Google does not view Android as simply "an operating system for phones". Android has tremendous application in IoT devices and appliances. The lifecycle of many applications is quite a bit longer than the cell phone. As we see an increase in the diversity of applications using Android, this upgrade path will be very important. Just wait until you see your first ATM or POS system "Powered By Android ©".

swiley 9y ago
The only two reasons people put up with android on phones are 1) it's the only choice if you want something small with a cell modem 2) it's the only choice if you want to run Snapchat Android is incredibly aweful. It's actually impossible to write apps for it that won't crash. If you're writing firmware it's even worse! Have you ever tried to build it? It's a nightmare! The source for a basic system is over 60GB and has a crazy number of dependencies. For embedded systems/IOT you're thousands of times better off just using buildroot or an RTOS.
- pjmlp 9y ago
  Which is why I cannot understand what Google is expecting people will do with Android Things, given the boards it runs on. A general purpose GNU/Linux distribution, with <place your favourite language here>, is a much saner approach for any developer. It is even possible to run with Java 9, something that Android (or its Things variant) probably will never support.
- cjhanks 9y ago
  Well, is it really much worse than Windows CE?
  - swiley 9y ago
    That's like comparing shooting yourself in the foot to shooting yourself in the head. There's no reason for either!

amluto 9y ago

One potential side benefit of this type of work: vendor kernel drivers tend to be insecure buggy pieces of crap. Vendor Treble drivers will surely still be insecure buggy pieces of crap, but they might be sandboxable. If Google really has its eyes on the Magenta kernel, I imagine that Treble will be runnable in user mode, so I bet it really will be sandboxed. This would be a huge win.

asciimo 9y ago

I wonder if this will make it easier to circumvent the vendor layer entirely--jailbreak without replacing the OS?

afeezaziz 9y ago

For someone that is considering Android, coming from iOS, this is a brilliant idea that should have been implemented long ago. For example, a lot of Android phones are running 4.4 and 5.0 in this part of the world. Those versions are pretty bad and the people that bought Android 4.4 and 5.0 actually do not know what they are missing and how to actually update their OS since there is no way for them to do that for now. I hope that with this Treble, there will be a lot more Android phones(from Chinese makers) that can update base Android OS to the latest one much more frequently.

ibic 9y ago

Android finally adapted the approach of Windows on PC - OS maker dictates the software pieces on all devices, the device makers only create the hardware and write drivers (optionally, some bloatware). I believe this is the right/better approach, and it solves no only the Android update hassle, but more importantly the fragmentation issue.