Google’s Latest AOSP Move Spells Doom For Custom ROMs On Pixel Phones

In March of this year, Google revealed it is changing its Android development process and will no longer make real-time code commits to public AOSP branches. The change barely had any public or development impact. But now, with the release of Android 16, Google is making a bigger change to AOSP that will affect the development of custom ROMs for Pixels.

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For years, Google used its Pixel phones as reference devices for AOSP development. As part of this, the company also published the device trees and driver binaries, ensuring that developers could compile a fully working AOSP build of Android for Pixels. Custom ROM developers also relied on the same device trees and driver binaries to ensure core features worked properly in their ROMs.

This won’t be the case going forward, though. While Google has already published the Android 16 source code, it won’t be releasing the device trees and driver binaries for compatible Pixel phones. The Graphene OS team initially claimed that Google made this change as it planned to discontinue AOSP entirely.

However, Seang Chau, VP and GM of Android Platform, refuted such rumors and provided a clearer picture (via Android Authority). He made it clear that Google is not doing away with AOSP. But going forward, AOSP will use a reference target device “that is flexible, configurable, and affordable — independent of any particular hardware, including those from Google.” And so, Google is switching from Pixels to Cuttlefish — a virtual Android device— as the reference AOSP device. Since it’s a virtual platform, developers can run Cuttlefish remotely or locally.

Custom ROM development for Pixel phones just got a lot more difficult

This move from Google will change the custom ROM development scene for Pixel phones forever. Unlike other Android devices, device trees and binaries made it relatively easier for developers to build ROMs for Pixel devices.

Without them, they would have to reverse-engineer prebuilt binaries to find out the changes that Google made — a challenging and time-consuming process. The lack of kernel source code commit history from Google only adds to the complexity.

Think of these device trees and binaries as the Android equivalent of drivers on a Windows PC — they ensure the operating system can properly communicate with the device’s hardware.

Google’s latest changes to AOSP will have a major impact if you run LineageOS or another custom ROM on your Pixel. That’s a dwindling number, though, as custom ROMs are no longer as popular as they once were. Still, it’s a major setback for leading custom ROM projects, like LineageOS and GrapheneOS.