Project Mainline is Google’s new attempt to send security updates directly to your phone

guest · May 7, 2019

Project Mainline is Google’s new attempt to send security updates directly to your phone
Google will start delivering some Android security updates through the Play Store
May 7, 2019
https://www.theverge.com/2019/5/7/1...-mainline-security-updates-play-store-io-2019

The new feature, called Project Mainline, will be part of Android Q. It’ll allow Google to send some security updates directly to Android phones through the Play Store, which is installed on basically all Android phones outside of China.

To start, there’ll be 12 different “modules” Google is capable of updating, including things like media components. These might be small individually, but it means that Google can now patch small bugs or potentially major flaws as soon as it spots then, just as it would with an app like Chrome.
This is all possible because Google has started to break Android’s underlying systems into individual pieces that are less reliant on one another, and therefore less likely to break when one or the other is changed.
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Beyonder · May 11, 2019

This actually seems really cool. Does this mean the original Pixel will be updated for longer than 3 years, in a sense?

Edit: Seems like the answer is no, since this seemingly only is available to phones released with Android Q. Oh well.

safeguy · May 12, 2019

Interesting development.

It is just unfortunate that most Android phones won't be running Android Q anytime soon so they won't be able to benefit from this.

guest · Oct 10, 2020

Everything you need to know about Android’s Project Mainline
October 10, 2020
https://www.xda-developers.com/android-project-mainline-modules-explanation/

One of the biggest changes in Android in recent years that flew under the radar, relatively speaking against its importance, was the introduction of Project Mainline in Android 10.
Google mandates the inclusion of specific Mainline modules across Android releases, with Android 11 coming in with a combined compulsory total of 25 Mainline modules. Here is an explanation on what Project Mainline is and what it aims to solve, alongside a list of all of Android’s Project Mainline modules.

Project Mainline extends the efforts of Project Treble. While Treble reduced how dependent OEMs were on SoC vendors for every single OS update, Mainline reduces how dependent Google is on OEMs for delivering security updates to key OS components. Project Mainline extends the Treble philosophy to more critical parts of the Android framework, removing OEMs as the dependent middlemen from this equation.
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For Project Mainline, Google makes use of Mainline modules which are delivered through the Google Play Services framework and the Google Play Store. Each Mainline module is delivered as either an APK file, an APEX file, or as an APK-in-APEX.
As Google states on the Android website:

Modular system components enable Google and Android partners to distribute updates broadly, quickly, and seamlessly to end-user devices in a non-intrusive manner. [...] The modular architecture enables system components to be updated with critical bug fixes and other improvements as needed, without affecting lower-level vendor implementations or higher-level apps and services.
As Ars Technica mentions:

Project Mainline, AKA “Google Play System Updates,” was introduced in Android 10 as a major effort to make core system components of Android more modular and updatable. Mainline introduced a new “APEX” filetype specifically for system components, with the goal of shipping core Android code through the Play Store as easily as you ship an app update [...]
[...] Hopefully, this article highlights just how important Project Mainline is to Google’s Android ecosystem.
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