Google introduced Project Treble along with Android 8.0 Oreo and championed it as the solution to Android fragmentation.
Project Treble split up the core Android operating system from the low-level software drivers for a device’s hardware. In other words, manufacturers would be able to update Android without having to rebuild software drivers.
Ideally, this would have shaved weeks off of the development time and allowed manufacturers to update devices faster than before.
However, Android Pie has shown that Treble didn’t really achieve that effect.
As the first significant update since 8.0, Android 9.0 would have demonstrated how effective Treble was at reducing fragmentation. However, three months on from release, Pie still isn’t on Google’s official Android distribution chart.
That means the latest version of Android has yet to reach the 0.1 percent minimum adoption required to get on the list. Considering the distribution chart tracks some two billion active devices, that means Pie needs to reach more than two million smartphones and tablets to get on the list.
While that’s a large number of devices that need to run the update, it’s entirely possible. Android 2.3.3 Gingerbread has 0.2 percent of the Android distribution — surely Pie can get there too.
Instead, it appears to be customizations added by manufacturers that slow down updates. Some companies, like Essential and OnePlus, have taken advantage of Treble to push out incredibly quick updates. Unfortunately, those manufacturers have almost stock Android offerings.
However, other manufacturers with heavier customizations haven’t sped up the update process.
In some cases, those manufacturers have gotten slower. Take Samsung, which just announced it’ll roll out its Android Pie update in January 2019. The lengthy wait is because the company is completely redoing its customization with the new One UI.
Unfortunately, it looks like Samsung’s One UI will tweak nearly every aspect of Android, meaning it won’t benefit from Project Treble. Further, despite the effort from Google, it seems that manufacturers will continue to choose custom UIs over fast and easy Android updates.
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