- Jan 8, 2011
- 22,361
Starting in the next version of Android, Google will begin distributing some security updates through its app store, allowing those updates to be pushed out to devices much faster than they are now.
Read more: Project Mainline is Google’s new attempt to send security updates directly to your phone
This is all possible because Google has started to break Android’s underlying systems into individual piecesCurrently, there’s a long process between Google issuing a security update and a phone manufacturer, like Samsung or LG, sending that update out to its devices. Google isn’t getting rid of that process for all updates, but this change will cut down on its impact.
The new feature, called Project Mainline, will be part of Android Q. It’ll allow Google to send some security updates directly to Android phones through the Play Store, which is installed on basically all Android phones outside of China.
Google can’t update everything about a phone this way. To start, there’ll be 12 different “modules” Google is capable of updating, including things like media components. These might be small individually, but it means that Google can now patch small bugs or potentially major flaws as soon as it spots then, just as it would with an app like Chrome.
Read more: Project Mainline is Google’s new attempt to send security updates directly to your phone