HTC is willing to share some bits about how they handle Android OS updates, from PDK (Platform Development Kit) to the eventual delivery via OTA.
The company just released an infographic detailing each and every process involved in the issue of Android update for a particular HTC device. The processes may be slightly vary for other manufacturers/OEMs but it pretty much involves Google and SoC manufacturers like Qualcomm.
- Google makes the Platform Development Kit available to its partners and the relevant sources to SoC vendors prior to any major Android release.
- Then comes the evaluation process where both SoC vendor decides whether the Android sources can be adapted on a particular SoC family, and if everything goes well the vendor will perform the necessary optimizations and provide updated generic kernel sources along with new libs.
- Pretty much the same goes for manufacturers which will evaluate the eligibility of a certain device, after approval the vendor will provide a Board Support Package (BSP) which is essentially a PCB with the SoC already soldered in along with multiple debugging ports (such as JTAG and other serial ports) specifically designed for testing purposes.
- Then only comes the development process where the manufacturer assigns a whole bunch of developers to integrate their framework (such as Sense or TouchWiz etc) on the base AOSP source along with their optimized kernel.
- Carriers may be involved to define the scope of modifications required upon which the respective changes are incorporated in the manufacturer sources before compilation
- Next comes the internal testing phases where potential bugs are iron out and further optimization is carried out.
- Google and eventually the respective industry/regulatory bodies are then summoned for testing and certification. – Google issues its technical acceptance and the manufacture prepares the necessary network/server infrastructure for the update rollout.
- Update is pushed to devices.
Check out the full infographic below:
