Is Android One Still Supported?

Android One is a family of third-party Android smartphones promoted by Google. Compared to many third-party Android devices, which come with a custom user interface from the manufacturer and built-in applications, these devices use almost standard versions of Android with limited modifications and focus on Google services. The devices come with hardware elements from the manufacturer, such as cameras, and receive operating system updates for at least two years after their release and security patches for at least three years. Android 11 groups notifications from messaging apps into a Conversations section at the top of the notification screen.

It recognizes different message chains and you can set one as a priority conversation to receive improved notifications. In the same way, you can mute notifications for specific threads if they are blowing up your phone. Google no longer supports Android 8.0 Oreo, but some manufacturers have adopted the Android framework and given it their own touch, creating a manufacturer's skin such as Huawei's EMUI or LG's UX mask. The pace of new devices appearing on the program's virtual shelves has been reduced to a trickle, and phones that are still alive and well within the walls of Android One aren't keeping their unique promises of quick and frequent software updates.

So, if you buy an Android One phone with Android 8.0 Oreo, you can expect to receive Android 9.0 Pie and Android Q over its lifetime, as well as updated monthly security patches. It also features Android Beam, which allowed users to touch the back of their phones to share photos, videos, contact information and other data using NFC. Nokia had made a name for itself, being the fastest to update its wallet, thanks in part to the use of Android One. It won't be a first-day patch as you'd expect in the Google Pixel range, but it should be much more agile than most other Android phones.

Those phones have always been at the forefront when it comes to the increasingly important area of Android updates, with after-sales support that puts most other options to shame, including those that cost four to five times more. Android OEMs also seem to control the release of operating system updates, which doesn't seem to be in the spirit of the Android One program when it was first released. The deal between Android and Nestlé was so secret that many Google users didn't know it until the presentation of the KitKat statue on the company's Silicon Valley campus. Android Honeycomb is a tablet-only operating system that adds features to make the Android interface compatible with larger screens.

Every Android One phone is guaranteed to receive at least three years of security updates starting from its release date, and also up to two years from major versions of Android.