How Covid-19 proves Android fragmentation is not a concern



To push the tracking system for people with Covid-19 implemented with Apple, Google will go through Play Services and thus touch all smartphones running Android 6 Marhmallow or higher. This is further proof that the fragmentation of Android is not a concern for this kind of initiative.








In this regard, we learned that "  the two companies will therefore publish APIs allowing interoperability between Android and iOS devices through the use of applications from public health authorities  " and that an application should see the light of day. On the Google side, an important question arose: how to ensure that a maximum of Android smartphones receives the update? The answer was found: Google Play Services.

GO THROUGH GOOGLE PLAY SERVICES TO REACH A MAXIMUM OF SMARTPHONES

Indeed, the Mountain View company has confirmed that the update of Android smartphones as part of this initiative will be via Google Play Services. This ensures that all smartphones that are equipped with it and running at least Android 6.0 Marshmallow will be compatible with the tracking infrastructure of people infected with the virus.

Said infrastructure is based on anonymised Bluetooth communications between phones and its deployment will be done in two stages, the first phase being planned for next month.


ANDROID FRAGMENTED… SO WHAT?

By exploiting Play Services to push this deployment, Google does not have to suffer from the slowness which the manufacturers of telephones can show on the system updates. This is a good way to work around this problem, but this solution above all proves that Android does not suffer as much as that from its great fragmentation.
As we know, new versions of the mobile OS always take a considerable amount of time to arrive on phones. For example, Android 10 runs on less than 10% of the devices concerned while its final version dates from September 2019. This phenomenon is explained by the fact that Android phones do not have the same specificities and it is therefore necessary to adapt the system at each terminal. The Treble project was well designed to address this concern, but this is not the silver bullet for the moment.

Although it is Google's ally in this cause, Apple has regularly made fun of this "weakness" of Android to highlight the fact that the latest versions of iOS are always quickly deployed on a large number of 'iPhone.
The argument is fallacious, in particular because it implies that developers must have a headache on Android to make their applications compatible with as many phones as possible - when on iOS it is enough to aim for the latest version. In reality, the libraries and Play Services made available by Google make it easy to reach a large number of devices, even if they do not run with the same versions of Android.

SOME EXCEPTIONS

By massively deploying its update necessary to run the application against the Covid-19, Google recalls that the fragmentation of its OS is not a concern.
Note however that Android smartphones without Google services - those sold in China or those of the Huawei brand for example - will not benefit as simply from the famous update. For these cases, the Mountain View company will publish resources that the manufacturers concerned can recover to reproduce the secure and anonymized tracking system developed by Google and Apple.