How Android makes it easy to get 7 years of updates for your phone

No one wants to part with a perfectly functional smartphone, but unfortunately, many Android manufacturers’ smartphone update policies make it risky to keep using your smartphone after a few years. Fortunately, there has been a recent trend in the industry towards extending software support, with some of the best Android smartphones now receiving up to seven years of updates. However, not many companies offer this level of support, and Google wants to change that with its new Longevity GRF program.

What is GRF?

GRF stands for Google Requirements Freeze and is the name of a program Google launched in 2020 to make it easier for chipset vendors like Qualcomm and MediaTek to support three years of Android OS updates. GRF fulfills the promise of Project Treble, the architectural change Google introduced in 2017 to modularize Android and separate the OS framework from lower-level vendors and Linux kernel software. The problem with Project Treble is that while it made it easier for OEMs to support Android OS updates, it actually increased complexity for chipset vendors. This is because chipset vendors must support both devices that boot into the original version of Android that the chipset vendor software was built on, and devices that boot into newer versions of Android.

To solve this, Google has promised to: freeze Google Requirements Freeze because vendor software requirements are no longer retroactive. OEMs can now ship Android OS updates with the original vendor software that the chipset was built on, rather than requiring them to ship updated vendor software for each Android OS update they want to deploy.

Essentially, OEMs can reuse chipset vendor software on multiple versions of Android and still receive certification from Google. This means that chipset vendors such as Qualcomm and MediaTek do not have to update their vendor software to meet new vendor software requirements for at least three years after launch, and are not required to update their vendor software to meet new vendor software requirements related to supporting multiple different combinations of vendor software and Android OS versions. engineering costs are reduced. Thanks to GRF, chipset vendors now only need to support 4 combinations of Android OS and vendor software instead of 10 when supporting 3 years of updates, resulting in significant cost savings. Masu.

What is Longevity GRF?

However, we find that GRF only allows reuse of vendor software for three Android version updates. However, at the beginning of this article, we mentioned that Google wants to enable seven years of Android version updates, which are not enabled under the current GRF program terms. If an OEM wants to provide the fourth, fifth, sixth, or even seventh Android OS version update to devices with chipsets under GRF, the OEM must either pay the chipset vendor for extended support or receive a huge You will need to undertake significant engineering work. Chipset vendor software updates itself to meet Google’s updated vendor software requirements with each subsequent release.

It’s not unheard of for OEMs to do something like this, as there are multiple Samsung devices eligible for Android’s seven major updates even if they use chipsets under the GRF program, but this is very difficult and expensive to do. However, Google created the new Longevity GRF program because it wants more OEMs to support 7 years of OS updates like Samsung does, and they do too.

Longevity GRF allows chipset vendor software to be reused for seven Android version updates instead of three. This means that devices that launched with a chipset with vendor software built for Android 15 can reuse that vendor software when updating to Android. The recently announced Qualcomm Snapdragon 8 Elite is the first chipset based on the Longevity GRF program. This means that all future phones with it will be able to reuse the vendor software that Qualcomm originally built for the seven Android version updates. After the chipset is released.

However, there is a catch. OEMs must upgrade their Linux kernel version after three years. Minor kernel updates alone are not enough, as Google requires OEMs to ship major kernel version upgrades in order to qualify. That’s because Google only promises to support Linux kernel forks for four years. Kernel 6.6 is the required version to launch new chipsets built for Android 15. If Google does not force OEMs to ship major kernel version upgrades, OEMs will have to backport security patches themselves to ensure compliance with Android security requirements. However, not all patches included in a Linux kernel release are marked as security patches, so some required patches may be lost during the backport process, so Problems may arise.

Additionally, Google will not allow OEMs to ship new devices that run four versions of Android later than the version on which the vendor software was originally built. This is to ensure that OEMs do not ship devices that only benefit from two or three of the seven Android version updates that Longevity GRF enables.

With all this in mind, the Android support lifecycle in Google’s Longevity GRF program looks like this:

Longevity GRF makes it easier for OEMs and silicon vendors to support seven Android OS version upgrades, but it also reduces the incentive to support new hardware features added to new versions of Android. For example, the 2G toggle that Google added to Android 12 and the flashlight brightness API that Google added to Android 13 both require vendor software updates to support them. This means that devices upgraded to Android 12 or 13 using frozen vendor software on Android 11 will no longer be able to support either feature. This was already an issue under the GRF, but will be exacerbated by the longer lifecycles covered under the Longevity GRF.

Google announced the Longevity GRF program at an OEM event earlier this year, but has not released any details. I found out about this thanks to a source who wishes to remain anonymous. The graph embedded in this article is a recreation of the graph Google showed to OEMs, so you can see exactly how Longevity GRF impacts the Android support lifecycle for chipsets covered by the program. It should show. Still, Google hasn’t released the program publicly, so some details may be missing. We will be sure to update this article as we learn additional information about the program.