Recognition: Edgar Cervantes / Android Authority
- Android 12 integrates the Android Runtime (ART) into Project Mainline.
- Google can provide ART upgrades for Android 12 devices through Google Play Updates.
- This is good news for timely bug and security fixes without the long wait times associated with full operating system updates.
Though they’re arriving faster than previous years, timely Android updates are still a bugbear of Google’s mobile ecosystem. Google began solving this problem with Project Treble 2017 and then expanded to allow component updates through Google Play with Project Mainline. Google is now expanding the scope of Project Mainline in Android 12 to include Android Runtime (ART).
Most importantly, Google is bypassing more and more update work that used to be done by third parties – such as silicon vendors and device manufacturers – and is taking responsibility itself. Project Mainline allows components to be updated through Google Play without the need for a full Android upgrade to improve and secure portions of the Operating System (OS). In other words, devices can be kept more secure and up-to-date quickly and easily, while important updates can also be packaged and rolled out faster.
With Android 12 in mind, ART is responsible for converting the Java bytecode into native machine code to be executed on a processor. ART also takes care of app-level memory management and memory cleanup. By integrating ART with Project Mainline, important ART-related bug and security fixes can be patched without device manufacturers and silicon providers having to wait. According to Google, this allows the operating system provider “to improve runtime performance and correctness, manage memory more efficiently, and accelerate Kotlin operations – all without a full system update.” Google has also expanded the scope of other modules with Android 12, e.g. B. the seamless transcoding function via an upgradeable module.
Connected: All the features of Android 12 that we know so far
Bringing ART into Project Mainline isn’t a complete game changer for the way Android 12 handles updates. This is just another component that Google can now update through the Play Store. This is great for keeping consumers informed and reducing the workload for critical Android operating system upgrades. This is also good news for third-party app developers who are less concerned about the consistency of behavior across the Android ecosystem.
Of course, all of this assumes that smartphone manufacturers support ART updates via Project Mainline. There’s no word from Google about whether this feature is mandatory in Android 12 or whether it’s backward compatible with devices updated to the latest OS version. This could be a major disadvantage as very few devices can issue GPU driver updates through Google Play. Even Android OS distributions that are shipped without Google Play, e.g. B. China or custom ROMs will not benefit from Project Mainline’s upgradeable modules.