New Qualcomm chipsets to get 4 years of Android upgrades and updates

Google and Qualcomm has a long term commitment to bring Android updates to users for at least two to three years of both Major OS upgrades and security updates and with that partnership going, the two companies have closely work together to step up its software update implementation beyond the current practice.

Beginning with Qualcomm Snapdragon 888, Android devices will get a total of four major Android OS versions and four years of security updates. That being said, besides the OS version installed at first boot, devices will also get three more OS upgrades and a four year of monthly security updates from the time the device is launch in the market.

This implementation is made possible thanks to the modular nature of Android with Project Treble where OEMs can readily update the OS framework while keeping the vendor custom implementations unaffected. While this practice is an advantage for manufacturers, it’s quite different for chipmakers.

For that reason, Google is rolling out new solutions to enable chipmakers like Qualcomm to “support Android with the same vendor implementations on their SoCs for device launches as well as upgrades.” This then reduces the work needed to bring newer Android versions to older Qualcomm SoCs.

The new changes applies to all SoC’s launching with Android 11 and later versions and hopefully manufacturers will implement this new extended device support.