this post was submitted on 12 Jun 2025
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AOSP isn't dead, but Google just landed a huge blow to custom ROM developers (www.androidauthority.com)
submitted 2 days ago by lzfm@lemmus.org to c/technology@lemmy.world
97 comments fedilink hide all child comments
 

TL;DR

  • Google has made it harder to build custom Android ROMs for Pixel phones by omitting their device trees and driver binaries from the latest AOSP release.

  • The company says this is because it’s shifting its AOSP reference target from Pixel hardware to a virtual device called “Cuttlefish” to be more neutral.

  • While Google insists AOSP isn’t going away, developers must now reverse-engineer changes, making the process for supporting Pixel devices more difficult.

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[–] passepartout@feddit.org 28 points 2 days ago (1 children)

This is not a selling point but rather a unfortunate but comprehensible circumstance. Nexus and later Pixel phones have not been anything more than reference hardware without significant sales until the Pixel 6. Google has been a software company that has greatly benefited by android being an "open" platform you could contribute to and use their services on.

The App / Cloud ecosystem has gained a lot of competitors, so Google is doing their best to reverse this course of action by pulling more and more functionality out of AOSP into Play services and now into Cuttlefish. We can only wait and see how other phone manufacturers react to this.

[–] nintendiator@feddit.cl 2 points 4 hours ago

We can only wait and see how other phone manufacturers react to this.

Honestly, it's obvious how they will react. After all, they'd have to pass a certification process if they want to be able to ship Google stuff.