Android users should get ready to stay upgraded longer. Qualcomm is busily gearing up to enhance the user experience of older smartphone owners as it is working on making it easier for OEMs to keep smartphones with older Qualcomm chipsets up to date.
Phone manufacturers (OEMs) are doing a pretty good job of keeping older devices updated with security patches and new Android versions. As compared to the previous time, when two years of major updates were standard, this is a big change.
Undoubtedly, the Korean brand ‘Samsung’ was the one that promised to offer longer software support for the first time, and that pushed other brands, especially Google, to offer more Android OS major updates and security updates.
Chris Patrick, SVP and General Manager of Handsets at Qualcomm, disclosed in an interview with Android Authority that Qualcomm has been setting up a few things that should make it easier for Android OEMs to deliver software updates.
He also added that Qualcomm has been working with Google and Android OEMs for the past few years “to change the structure of inline code—to kind of change the machinery for how we do those updates.”
It seems that these changes should abstractly minimize the friction Android smartphone companies face while keeping their devices updated with the latest software. It seems that by the end of this year, Qualcomm will announce something to add an extra layer of upgrades that should make things even better.
However, the executive has yet to reveal an exact release date or schedule, but it’s expected that it could make an announcement at the Snapdragon Summit 2024 in October.
The next-generation flagship Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 chip is also expected to launch at this event. This chipset is supposed to be used in the Galaxy S25 series and other flagship Android smartphones and tablets. Once, two years of major OS updates were a huge thing for smartphones, but now it’s not the case anymore, even for cheap smartphones.
Last year, Google announced that it would provide seven years of Android OS and security updates to its Pixel devices. Samsung also adopted this seven-year software policy earlier this year with the Galaxy S24 series. It’s expected that Qulacomm’s announcement will upgrade the speed at which Android updates arrive.
