Devices Launching Late 2020 Could Include New Changes
The report said that the A/B partition setup refers to the duplicated read-only partitions in the system. With the new codes, the updater basically activates an inactive partition in the background and installs the update. When the user eventually reboots the device, the system would boot from the partition where the update was performed leaving the other partition untouched. The cycle repeats itself with each update which would indicate an seamless effort for updating the device. For those users purchasing new Android devices in late 2020 with Android 11 onboard, the changes would mean that users would no longer be kicked out of the device during Android updates. The report further highlights that several modern flagships including Samsung Galaxy S20 or the Oppo Find X2 doesn’t include an A/B partition. However, the Mi A2 Lite with the A/B partition paved way for quick updates.
Storage Became An Crucial Factor for OEMs
While the A/B setup was around for long, OEMs were said to be reluctant to introduce it into their systems due to storage issues. It was said that duplicating partitions with several key files would cause OEMs to sacrifice storage as most OEMs bundle their own apps along with those from Google. The publication said that the virtual A/B partitions were introduced with Android 10 alongside the dynamic partitions. It was said that these partitions work on the similar concept to A/B partition, however, they can be freely resized
