Android updates are supported for a long time on top-of-the-line, high-end or upper-midrange devices from all brands, but this is much more difficult for lower-midrange and especially entry-level phones. However, Qualcomm wants to do everything possible to change this.
The release of updates depends a lot on the manufacturer of the chipset in your phone, as that company still has to actively support the SoC, and for most cheaper ones, the support window expires much sooner than for more expensive ones, which is probably understandable. Even at higher price points, the pace of updates isn’t always what it should be – for example, monthly security updates are only provided monthly by a handful of brands.
So this is where Qualcomm comes in. According to Chris Patrick, senior vice president and general manager of handsets at Qualcomm, the company is working on making it easier for OEMs to keep all of their phones updated.
Patrick told Android Authority:
It’s very complicated for a customer — the OEM — to get security updates, get Android version updates, and then push that out to every end user. It’s actually very expensive and very complicated. Over the last several years we’ve been working with Google and the OEMs on changing the structure of the inline code — to change the machinery to do those updates. You’ll see that, later this year, we’ll make some announcements about some of the changes we’ve made to facilitate that and help the whole ecosystem keep Android phones up to date.
Patrick says this has been a big concern for Qualcomm for some time, and so the company plans to announce something to address it.
Unfortunately there is no detailed information about it, so we don’t know when such an announcement will take place, but given the fact that Qualcomm is holding its annual Snapdragon Summit in Hawaii this October, we believe it will most likely happen at that time.
Of course, this doesn’t mean that things will magically change instantly for all devices from the next day, but it does give us some hope that updates will arrive in a more timely manner for all devices.