A Look at the Amount of Time Smartphone Vendors Have Taken To Roll out Major Android Updates To Their Handsets, and How Things Are Beginning To Improve (androidauthority.com)

Most Android smartphone vendors have been notorious for the time they take to roll out the newest Android OS updates to their respective handsets. To tackle this, Google in 2017 announced Project Treble, which bypasses some middlemen in delivering new updates to consumers. With Project Treble now supported by all Android phone makers, in theory updates should roll out to us faster than before. To test this, news blog AndroidAuthority looked at the data to see where things stand. From the report: On average, Nougat updates took about 192 days to reach key devices, while Oreo was slightly faster at 170. Android Pie updates hit devices much faster, averaging just 118 days from Google's launch to significant OEM rollout. That's a significant improvement, though we're still waiting on updates from LG and HTC, which could drag this average back up. Most manufacturers are faster at providing updates now, but a few are slower. Huawei, Samsung, and Xiaomi were noticeably quicker this time around, bringing updates to key devices before the end of 2018. OnePlus and Sony were especially fast, but they've always been speedier than most. Disappointingly, Motorola has rolled out updates to its flagship Z series slower over the last few years.

Comments

Meanwhile...

[Anubis IV]

Look, it’s great that updates are available sooner on “key devices”, but the fact that this is being cited as something praiseworthy is rather indicative of how broken the situation remains. It took 192 days on average for Nougat to even become available on a subset of devices. 170 for Oreo. 118 for Pie. Meanwhile, iOS has always taken 0 days: it was available to all compatible devices immediately upon its release.

And availability is just half the problem. If availability is staggered, you have a harder time encouraging people to update (or even making them aware of the update), which hampers the deployment rate. Improving the speed of deployment needs to be the end goal. Improving availability is just a necessary step towards clearing hurdles that are in the way.

Re: Meanwhile...

[cyber-vandal]

The price you pay for "freedom" is being constantly vulnerable unless you buy a new flagship phone every year plus having Google spying on you constantly. Both options in the smartphone market are shit but I'll go with the one that's still getting updates after 5 years. There are no Android phones that have that option.

Re:Um...

[LynnwoodRooster]

Two billion Android devices and 3.5 billion searches a day. You're right - no one uses Google services. No one. Sad.