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HTC U11 Life is HTC's first smartphone to get the Android Pie update
HTC's mobile division isn't in the best position right now, but the HTC U11 Life is now starting to receive its update to Android Pie.
Google released the first stable version of Android Pie back in the first week of August. We're getting close to the fourth month after its release and some companies are just now beginning to get the latest version of Android onto their devices. In fact, there are some who have begun selling devices in the last month or two that are shipping with Android 8.1 Oreo out of the box. HTC's mobile division isn't in the best position right now, but even they were able to beat some of these OEMs as the HTC U11 Life is now starting to receive its update to Android 9 Pie.
HTC isn't giving up on making smartphones
HTC is putting out new phones in 2019, desite the HTC U11 & HTC U12 being flops. But what will they do to keep themselves afloat?
HTC's smartphone business has been on a downward spiral for the past 2 years. Their 2017 lineup of smartphones, which included the HTC U Ultra, HTC U11, HTC U11 Plus, and the HTC U11 Life, was, while decent all-around, a flop. The company then went on to have an even rougher 2018: the HTC U12 Plus and the HTC U12 Life weren't exactly considered sales successes. Their latest device, the blockchain-focused HTC Exodus 1, is being advertised as a revolutionary breakthrough, but ultimately, the phone serves a very niche market, and most consumers and power users simply see it as HTC grasping at straws. Despite all of this, they're not done with smartphones just yet--the company plans to continue putting out new phones throughout 2019.
HTC U11/U11+/U11 Life (Android One) & U12+ confirmed to get Android Pie
HTC has announced that the HTC U11, HTC U11+, Android One variant of the HTC U11 Life, and the HTC U12+ will receive the Android Pie update.
The stable version of Android 9 Pie was officially released on Tuesday for the Google Pixel/XL and the Google Pixel 2/XL. On the same date, Essential rolled out the Android Pie update for the Essential Phone. The OnePlus 6 is currently on Android Pie beta 3, while the Nokia 7 Plus just received Android Pie beta 4. An alpha build of Android Pie has leaked for the Xiaomi Mi Mix 2S, and we should be receiving more news soon for other smartphones eligible for the Android P beta program. On the other hand, companies like Samsung, Huawei, LG, and HTC didn't participate in the Android 9 Pie beta program. HTC has now revealed which of its phones will receive the Android Pie update.
How A/B Partitions and Seamless Updates Affect Custom Development on XDA
You may have heard of Seamless Updates before. It involves something called "A/B partitions." What is it and how does it affect custom development on XDA?
When Android Nougat released, it had us talking about all kinds of new features. We got a newly updated user interface for starters along with long-awaited multiwindow capabilities and Vulkan Graphics API support. But one under-the-hood addition flew over the heads of most users. Android Nougat introduced "Seamless Updates" on devices that support A/B partitions. The vast majority of existing Android devices (excluding the new Google Pixel and Google Pixel XL) did not have A/B partitions at the time and thus couldn't take advantage of seamless updates. The basic premise of this feature is that the device has a second set of the system, boot, vendor, and other important partitions, and when you get an OTA update the update happens in the background while the second set of partitions are patched which lets you reboot into an updated software build seamlessly. If an update fails, you'll be kicked back to a working build, meaning companies will have fewer headaches to deal with and consumers are better protected.