OnePlus 3/3T & 5/5T will not get Project Treble, Android’s coolest new feature

OnePlus 5T is the latest device from the company and it just went on sale today. For a phone this new, it is sad to hear that it won’t get one of the coolest features Google introduced with Android Oreo, the Project Treble. For those you who, who are not aware of Project Treble, here is a brief introduction to it.

What is Project Treble?

Project Treble is the Google’s new idea to update all Android phones to the latest version as soon as possible. We know that Android sucks when it comes to the software updates. Only Google made Nexus and Pixel phones get fast and proper updates and all other manufacturers struggle to deliver updates because they use their own interface and skin over stock Android. The update process becomes so slow that some phones get the previous version of Android after the new version gets released. Like some devices are getting the Android 7 Nougat now and Android 8 Oreo is already out. Project Treble is the answer to this major problem Android is facing since its launch.

Google’s Project Treble enables smartphone manufacturers to update their devices to the latest version of Android easily without working on their custom UI like TouchWiz and MIUI. These are two different worlds now, take Samsung’s TouchWiz as an example, before project Treble, Samsung had to work on their interface as well as the new update to integrate it and then release the update for their device but with Project Treble, manufacturers will be able to upgrade the base version of Android without any trouble and they do not need to work on their custom UI to properly integrate the OS. The whole process is explained in the following picture.

Now, let’s talk about the OnePlus devices. OnePlus has confirmed that none of its current devices will be getting the Project Treble including the OnePlus 3, 3T, 5 and 5T but they will be upgraded to Android 8.1 Oreo for sure. We are not sure what is stopping OnePlus from using Project Treble but it is good to see that it is updating all of its devices, including the old ones to the latest version of Android.

It looks like only those devices will get the Project Treble which launch with at least at least Android 8.0 Oreo. I know it’s weird to see that the OnePlus 5T, a flagship phone, launched with Android Nougat while Google already launched Android Oreo 3 months ago. However, there are a couple of exceptions including the 2016 Google Pixel phones for the obvious reasons as it is owned by Google. The other phone to implement Project Treble is the Essential phone. It is good to see that a non-Pixel phone is working to make the Project Treble a reality.