Google says Project Treble has helped to speed up Android OS updates

Editorial Director of News and Content

| October 23, 2019

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When Google launched Project Treble with Android 8.0 Oreo, it had the goal of speeding up Android updates so that more users could enjoy the new features of Android OS updates. Today Google shared some info on exactly how that effort has gone.

Google says that thanks to Project Treble, adoption of Android 9 Pie one year after its launch was considerably higher than Android 8.0 Oreo after the same amount of time. Just before the launch of Android 9 Pie in late July 2018, Android 8.0 Oreo was on 8.9% of devices. Just before the launch of Android 10 in late August 2019, Android 9 Pie was on 22.6% percent of device.

Project Treble Android Oreo Pie updates

Google also explains that it partnered with silicon manufacturers to reduce the average time to Android OS upgrade by more than three months. The company says that it continues to make improvements and that it expects upgrades from Android 9 to Android 10 to happen earlier this year.

We saw devices from Xiaomi and Essential get updates to Android 10 the same day as Google's own Pixel phones this year. OnePlus pushed out Android 10 updates shortly after, and the Nokia 8.1 was updated to Android 10 recently as well. What's more, Google says that ASUS, LG, Motorola, OPPO, Realme, Samsung, Sharp, Sony, Transsion, and Vivo have committed to pushing Android 10 updates by the end of 2019.

Finally, Google notes that the ROM development community benefits from Project Treble, too. Within days of Android 10's release, it was ported to 15 devices that originally launched with Android 8 or Android 9.

These Android OS adoption numbers come one week after Apple shared its own OS adoption rates. While Android's states don't quite compare to iOS's, things are also a little different since Android is going out to multiple devices with different specs from many different manufacturers. It's good to see Project Treble having a positive effect and getting more people onto newer versions of Android more quickly so that they can get the new features and security patches. Here's to hoping that things continue to be speedy with Android 10./