Google withheld the release of the Pixel device trees and hardware repositories, which are crucial for makers of custom ROMs, when Android 16 was released earlier this week. Some began to speculate that “AOSP is being discontinued” as a result of this. Despite Google’s denials, the Pixel modification appears to be deliberate.
Google made the source code for Android 16 available to the Android Open Source Project on Tuesday. In a significant departure from previous releases, the Pixel device trees and other code that were utilized to modify the AOSP release to fit particular (made by) Google hardware were not made available.
Custom Android ROMs will struggle to produce their OS updates without the Pixel hardware repos, which contain the device trees, driver binaries, and other components. Security (vulnerability) researchers may also be affected by this.
As a result, some community members conjectured that AOSP was being phased out. Seang Chau, the vice president and general manager of Android, said on Wednesday night that “AOSP is NOT going away” in general. Google has stated that it will continue to be “dedicated to AOSP updates,” speaking directly to developers.
The Android team’s statement does appear to indicate that Pixel device trees will no longer be available. A “reference target” that is “independent of any particular hardware, even those from Google” is what AOSP hopes to provide in the future.
AOSP needs a reference target that is flexible, configurable, and affordable – independent of any particular hardware, including those from Google. For years, developers have been building Cuttlefish (available on GitHub as the reference device for the project) and GSI targets from source. We continue to make those available for testing and development purposes.
Once more, Google is “dedicated to AOSP,” but the future will be more difficult for people who run custom ROMs.
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Robert Haba is the founder and editor-in-chief of Droid Tools. A lifelong gadget enthusiast with over a decade following the Android ecosystem, he built this publication to cut through the noise and give readers honest, real-world coverage of the tech they actually use.
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