Qualcomm plans to ease Android updates on Snapdragon phones

Snapdragon 8 Gen 4 launch would bring a fruitful announcement for Android vendors. Qualcomm apparently working to make it easier for OEMs to roll out Android updates to Snapdragon phones.

Qualcomm’s Chris Patrick stated that the company would bring changes to make it easier for OEMs to upgrade their older Android phones. These changes would result in longer OS updates on Snapdragon-powered Android devices.

While security updates aren’t that difficult, Android fragmentation restricts OEMs from promising over 4-5 years of OS updates. Upgrading Android devices with older Snapdragon chips requires heavy resources, making it complex.

Qualcomm has been working with Google and OEMs “to change the structure of inline code.” It is speculate that there will be a major announcement in this regard, benefitting a vast majority of Android consumers.

“You’ll see that, later on this year, we’ll make some announcements about some of those changes we’ve made to facilitate this and help the whole ecosystem keep Android phones closer to up to date.” – Chris Patrick, SVP and General Manager of Handsets at Qualcomm, June 2024.

Google phones are equipped with custom Tensor processors. However, the company has already announced a seven-year-long upgrade guarantee for the recent Pixel phones, which is beyond basic requirements.