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[Update: Surprise Beta] ASUS drops plans to update the ZenFone 4 to Android Pie
Asus has officially dropped plans to upgrade the ZenFone 4 to Android 9 Pie after releasing a beta update earlier this year.
Taiwanese smartphone manufacturer Asus launched the ZenFone 4 back in late 2017, running Android Nougat out of the box. The device was then updated to Android Oreo shortly thereafter. Earlier this year, to the joy of ZenFone 4 owners worldwide, the company rolled out an Android Pie beta update for the device. However, the joy was shortlived, as Asus has now officially dropped plans for the Android Pie update.
ASUS rolls out an Android Pie beta for the ZenFone 4
The latest member of the family to get in on Android Pie is the regular ZenFone 4. ASUS is rolling out a beta update for the phone right now.
ASUS has worked on updating the ZenFone 4 series of devices to Android Pie. We've seen updates for the ZenFone 4 Max and ZenFone 4 Selfie. The latest member of the family to get in on Android Pie is the regular ZenFone 4. ASUS is rolling out a beta update for the ZenFone 4 now.
How to flash a Generic System Image (GSI) on Project Treble supported devices
So your device supports Project Treble, what does that mean for you? It means you can flash a Generic System Image such as LineageOS or Resurrection Remix! Enjoy AOSP-based custom ROMs! Here's a guide on how to install these ROMs.
If you've only heard of Project Treble in passing but haven't looked into it all that much, then you may have heard that it's supposed to help major Android updates roll out more quickly. At XDA, there's another benefit that we've spoken about at length: the ability to boot an AOSP Generic System Image (GSI) on any supported device. This means that devices that were once running heavily customized Android versions like Samsung Experience on the Samsung Galaxy S9 or EMUI 8 on the Huawei Mate 10 Pro can alternatively run software closer to that of the Google Pixel 2.
Here's a list of Android devices updated with Project Treble support
Project Treble is a major re-architecture of the way Android works. The result is that Android software updates should come faster on devices that support it. Also, it opens up a whole new avenue of custom ROMs. Check out if your device supports it!
Whereas Apple is able to keep most of their devices, even many older ones, up to date with the latest software (which sometimes involve rather controversial features), Android device makers have varying degrees of success keeping their devices up to date. Some device makers like Essential and Google are pretty good at providing security patches, while others can delay updates by months at a time. That's without considering major software updates such as from Android Nougat to Android Oreo, a software release which is installed on only slightly more than 1% of all Android devices. To combat slow Android updates, Google introduced Project Treble.
ASUS Zenfone 4 Android Oreo Update Brings Project Treble Support Without Separate Vendor Partition
The Asus Zenfone 4 has received Project Treble support, but Asus's implementation doesn't use a separate vendor partition to store the device BLOBs.
A major criticism of Android phone makers since the launch of Android Oreo has been a failure to support Project Treble, Google's modular upgrade scheme that has the potential to help the custom ROM development in ways that previously weren't imaginable. With Project Treble, A single system image can boot across multiple devices, so it's not surprising that some people have been disappointed that not all OEMs are supporting it. Nokia and OnePlus both claim that their devices don't have the necessary partitions -- a fair excuse, given that Project Treble requires a /vendor partition to hold all of the device Binary Large Objects (BLOBs). But Asus didn't let that stop it from releasing an Android Oreo-based update for the Asus Zenfone 4 that brings Project Treble support without a separate vendor partition.