Android phones will get the COVID-19 updates via Google Play
Google has confirmed that it will use the Google Play Services infrastructure to update Android phones with the upcoming COVID-19 contact tracing system it is building in collaboration with Apple.
It should ensure that more Android phones will actually get the
updates, and also ensure that they become available on phones running
Android 6.0 Marshmallow or above.
Source : Google |
Google says that its update system will apply to both
phases of the Bluetooth contact tracing framework — the initial API
rollout, which is due next month, and the next stage, which will see the
APIs built into the OS. The companies will say only that the second
stage will arrive “in coming months.”
There is one huge set of Android devices that don’t
benefit from Google Play services: all of the Android phones in China,
as well as any Huawei phones sold around the world after the imposition of restrictions by the US.
Google is not allowed to export software to Huawei, which means it
could not apply this system to its phones just as it cannot include
Chrome or Gmail.
For those phones, Google intends to publish a framework
that those companies could use to replicate the secure, anonymous
tracking system developed by Google and Apple. It will then be up to
Huawei, Xiaomi, and other Chinese manufacturers (or the Chinese
government) to decide whether to use the system.
That’s the strategy Google uses for its Project Mainline system of updates,
launched last year for more recent versions of Android. However,
Project Mainline updates are explicitly open sourced. Google declined to
comment on whether this system would be, but did note that it will
offer code audits to companies that want to adopt a similar system.
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