- New efficiency upgrades are coming to Android
- Google is promising faster speeds and longer battery life
- Updates are being tested for Android 15, 16, and 17
Good news if you’ve got an Android phone: Google is pushing out a major optimization update that should mean your device runs faster and and lasts longer between battery charges, without you having to do anything.
As per the Android Developers Blog (via Android Authority), the update provides “impressive improvements across key Android metrics” based on testing Google has been carrying out on Pixel phones in its labs.
What Google is doing here is rather complex and technical, but fortunately for the non-engineers among us, end users don’t need to know too much in terms of the details. In simple terms, a core part of the Android software will now operate based on your specific device and how you use it.
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Google says it’s seen a 2.1% increase in boot times and a 4.3% increase in app launch times in its testing, for example. The new optimizations are currently being tested for Android 15, Android 16, and Android 17, and should be rolling out soon.
Meet AutoFDO
At the center of this upgrade is AutoFDO, which is short for Automatic Feedback-Directed Optimization. It operates in a part of Android called the kernel, which acts like a headquarters for the software — about 40% of the processing that a chipset does on an Android phone involves the kernel, Google says.
Whenever code is running on a phone, there are thousands of small operations involved, and before now Android would use a general rulebook to determine how to execute them. With the AutoFDO update, the rulebook gets customized based on actual real-world patterns, so code gets processed in a more efficient way.
More frequently used code can be identified and prioritized, for example. That should mean “a snappier interface, faster app switching, extended battery life, and an overall more responsive device for the end user” according to Google.
It certainly sounds promising, though we’ll have to wait and see how it works on actual devices. We may hear more about this feature, plus plenty of new features for the upcoming Android 17, at the Google I/O event in May.
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