[dollop43]

Project Treble is an effort to separate driver and Linux kernel. And later Android added mechanism to upgrade kernel from play service. I guess Google is resourceful enough to hedging on different approach to solve a similar problem.

However, the crux of the problem is the Android manufacturer. You can't solve a human and incentive problem with a technical solution. Project Treble makes manufacturer easier to support their device, but they still don't motivate to do it. Google needs a tighter control on what device manufacturer should release.

Android One is a good approach, only qualify certain devices to be include for meeting certain criteria. They could actually create a watermark on unsecured device for not updating Android version, just like chromium do it to website not using https. I think this is more effective than creating a new OS just to let the manufacturer being lazy.

[berdario]

I bought two Android One devices... I'm afraid that the program is now dead:

https://www.android.com/one/

Their "Explore our latest phones" section shows 2 years old devices :/

[shp0ngle]

Android One is indeed dead.

There are no incentives for the manufacturers to make these devices, as customers don't care and don't want to pay premium for them, while the manufacturers can get money from adding crapware to their phones.

[jsnell]

Nokia is still releasing new models (oh God, so many new models), and I think they're all on Android One. But indeed the Android One website not being updated with new ones is a bad sign.

[pjmlp]

Nokia branded phones are one of the best update experiences on Android.

[defer]

Not quite, treble is more about separating hardware specifics in a versioned, backwards compatible way. It's more for replacing the previous HAL system which in itself already abstracted the kernel for driver support (not necessarily just the kernel because modern platforms run things like audio, sensors, telephony outside of the kernel purview in specialized dsps or secondary mcus).