- New efficiency updates are coming to Android
- Google promises faster speeds and longer battery life
- Updates for Android 15, 16 and 17 are being tested
Good news if you have an Android phone: Google is rolling out a major optimization update that should mean your device runs faster and lasts longer between battery charges, without you having to do anything.
According to the Android Developer Blog (via Android Authority), the update provides “impressive improvements to key Android metrics” based on testing Google has been running on Pixel phones in its labs.
What Google is doing here is quite complex and technical, but fortunately for those of us who are not engineers, end users don’t need to know too much in terms of details. In simple terms, a core part of Android software will now work depending on your specific device and how you use it.
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Google says it has seen a 2.1% increase in startup times and a 4.3% increase in app launch times in its tests, for example. The new optimizations are currently being tested for Android 15, Android 16, and Android 17 and should roll out soon.
Get to know AutoFDO
At the center of this update is AutoFDO, which is short for Automatic Feedback Driven Optimization. It operates on a part of Android called the kernel, which acts as the home of the software: About 40% of the processing a chipset does in an Android phone involves the kernel, Google says.
Every time you run code on a phone, there are thousands of small operations involved, and until now, Android used a general rulebook to determine how to execute them. With the AutoFDO update, the rulebook is customized based on actual real-world patterns, so code is processed more efficiently.
For example, most frequently used codes can be identified and prioritized. That should mean “a snappier interface, faster app switching, longer battery life, and overall a more responsive device for the end user,” according to Google.
It certainly sounds promising, although we’ll have to wait and see how it works on real devices. We may hear more about this feature, plus many new features for the upcoming Android 17, at the Google I/O event in May.
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