14 DAY TRIAL // Google has removed a little bit of text from Android One webpage which indicated that participating devices would be getting two years of guaranteed OS updates.
Google launched the Android One initiative a few years ago in an effort to unite a very fragmented Android market. With so many companies making phones, the OS market was broken up in numerous pieces. And if we add the fact that most companies choose to modify the vanilla Android OS, then the problem gets even more complicated.
Each new phone from Google is powered by the latest Android operating system, and it’s perfectly clean of any bloatware. That’s why it’s called the vanilla version. With the Android One program, Google wanted to bring other companies on board. Offering the default Android OS on phones means that system and security updates can land much quicker.
Guaranteed OS updates
The original text on the Android One website was unambiguous. “With Android One, your phone will receive at least two years of OS upgrades to the latest version of Android. That means access to the latest innovations and a phone that always runs as smoothly as the day you bought it.”
The text removal from Android One was spotted by a Reddit user, and it’s already clear that the community is rallying up. While the simple removal of the text from the official website might be just a mistake or have some other benign reason of being gone, the simpler explanation is that Google is no longer interested in providing this option.
Now, from the looks of it, only their line of Pixel devices is still getting the guaranteed operating system updates. And you can imagine that people are not going to be too happy if this turns out to be true.
It’s also unclear what happens with devices that are already listed on the website. It’s possible that the new rule will apply for new devices, but until Google has a clear stance on this issue, it remains to be determined.
