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Google and Qualcomm are working together to make it easier to deliver Android updates to phones powered by new Snapdragon chipsets.
Read more: Snapdragon 888: Mi 11, Realme Race, OnePlus 9, and more flagships set to battle it out
The extended Android support starts from next year with Snapdragon 888-powered smartphones.
Google has made four years of Android updates possible for new devices by extending Project Treble's "no-retroactivity principle" to SoCs in addition to devices. It's a bit technical, but the Project Treble that was announced back in 2017 to make it easier for manufacturers to deliver updates had a few complexities. "It made the chipset manufacturers' jobs harder, amplifying the work they had to do to support multiple generations of software depending on when phones would launch during that chip's lifecycle," as explained by Android Police in its report.
Over the years, Google is said to have worked with top Android chipmakers so that "all-new Qualcomm mobile platforms that take advantage of the no-retroactivity principle for SoCs will support 4 Android OS versions and 4 years of security updates." OEMs can therefore upgrade devices to the latest OS without modifying Qualcomm's "chipset-specific software."
The new implementation applies to all Snapdragon SoC phones launched with Android 11. It also closes the software update gap iPhones have over Android devices. An iPhone model typically gets software updates for approximately five years.