OnePlus Blames Partitioning Requirements For Not Bringing Treble To Their Current Devices

OnePlus 3, 3T, 5 and 5T will never settle for Project Treble

OnePlus calls itself as an enthusiast brand which makes products inline with the demands of the community. To its credit, OnePlus has taken decisions like retaining the headphone jack for the 5T based on consumer wishes, but OnePlus' recent actions have left its loyal fans displeased.

To ramp up the pace of Android updates, Google introduced Project Treble earlier this year. Project Treble separates the vendor implementation ("device-specific, lower-level software written by silicon manufacturers") from the Android OS framework. In previous versions of Android, the vendor implementation and the OS framework were connected to each other. Hence when a new version of Android was released, the silicon manufacturer had to first update their code to work with the new release of Android and only then could the device manufacturer work on the framework code. With Treble, Google pulled out the silicon manufacturers from the update process. Since one agent was eliminated from the update chain, updates were bound to quicken since only the framework code was to be upgraded. Project Treble has also been shown to positively influence the development of ROMs. So no matter whether its an average Android user or a hardcore flashaholic, Project Treble is meant to benefit everyone.

In an Ask-Me-Anything (AMA) session held last month, OnePlus delivered the disappointing news that it won't be supporting any of its current devices with Project Treble. As expected, OnePlus fans weren't happy and they went on to file a petition requesting OnePlus to reconsider its decision. The online petition went on to gain support from over ten thousand fans. When one of OnePlus customers questioned the company today (in an AMA) on why Project Treble won't be supported on the current devices, this is what a OnePlus employee had to say.

Recently, we received requests from users and community members, some of which signed a Change.org petition to support Project Treble on the OnePlus 5 and OnePlus 5T. Project Treble is a really exciting technology, but it is not the right fit for us now. I assure you we’re still updating our devices and will continue to deliver high-quality, stable software updates. That being said, we always welcome feedback, and I want to further shed some light on why we are not implementing Project Treble on these devices.

Project Treble requires a storage partition, by which the Android framework and vendor image are separated. However, because partitions were not required of Android N and previous versions of Android, all of our current devices do not feature a partition. According to our tests, if we were to modify the partition layout via OTA there is a risk that devices will brick during the partitioning. We feel this poses too great a risk for our community of users, which is why we have decided not to implement Project Treble on current OnePlus devices. 

While Project Treble can increase the rate of Android OS updates, it mainly accelerates the Android framework updates. We were one of the first manufacturers to release an update to Android O. Our software team is committed to delivering high-quality and stable major OS upgrades, and we will continue to look for ways to improve the quality and rate at which we deliver software updates in the future. That being said, we look forward to the future of Project Treble, and how it will evolve to better support devices ahead.

It's worth mentioning here that the 5T was launched three months after Oreo was launched by Google in August. Another thing worth noting here is that Google shares the Android source code with manufacturers well before the stable release of the Android version. So while it can be understandable why OnePlus won't be supporting Treble on its older devices (OP 3, 3T and 5), it should have had enough time to plan its moves for the OnePlus 5T. Moreover, the Essential Phone was also launched with Nougat like the 5T, and Essential has committed to supporting Treble for the PH-1. So Essential did plan out things ahead of time, something which OnePlus could have done too.

Although we have every reason to be disappointed about OnePlus not supporting Treble, there isn't much we can do to improve the situation. So rather than drooling over the situation, we might as well move along.

Source: OnePlus

[Image credit - OnePlus]

Krittin Kalra

Krittin Kalra is a 20 year old Android freak. Striving for passions, chasing down his dreams and living a life without regrets is his sole mantra. A bit moody, he also does custom ROM reviews for AndroGuider. Currently pursuing his B.Tech, he aspires to follow his heart.