Android's development passes “in private”: what it really means

The difference in competing mobile operating systems, including iOS, Android has been operating for almost 17 years according to a hybrid model. Google, system holder that equips his Pixelgrant the operating license to its partners, who use it with GMS (Google Mobile Services, that is to say its own applications). In parallel, any interested party can access the Android Open Source Project, alias AOSP, and which corresponds to the version open-source of the system. If this duality does not change, its organization will undergo a major modification.

Google indeed confirms to our colleagues fromAndroid Authority that the development of Android – its commercial version and its public declination – will become private from next week. In other words, the changes to the Android supported by Google will not appear in the public branch of AOSP development in real time, but to the publication of new version of the system.

Less transparency

As our colleagues point out, most of the Android components, with the exception of the core of the system or Bluetooth, are already included in an internal development branch. It is therefore more a question of completing an already started movement internally than changing course.

Google ensures that it is a question of simplifying the system development process, and the change will not affect its partners, who have access to its internal development branch, nor external developers, which will obtain more stable AOSP versions, but less often. On the other hand, we especially remember that it will now be a little less easy to discover in the depths of the AOSP code what Mountain View reserves for its next software versions. And it will be worth from Android 16expected in final version by the summer of 2025.