In 2019, Google announced Project Mainline for Android. It is a program that aims to separate key components of Android from the operating system itself. This approach enables the company to offer updates to these modules directly through Play Store. That means if Google rolls out an update to a key component of the OS, users don’t have to wait for their phone manufacturer to include it in the next OTA system update. They can get it on the same day it’s released directly from Google.
Android phones and tablets running Android 15 could get NFC updates directly from Google
So far, Google has decoupled many key components from Android, including Wi-Fi, Bluetooth, and UWB. Now, the company is taking the same approach for NFC. Discovered by Mishaal Rahman, the source code of the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) suggests that Google is working on making the NFC stack a Mainline module (separate it from the OS). This will allow Google to quickly fix any issue with the NFC component by offering an update to it through the Google Play Store.
According to Mishaal, the latest change, unfortunately, might not be included in the final release of Android 14. The approach to making the NFC stack a Mainline module has just appeared in the AOSP. That means we can expect it to be a part of Android 15, which will release next year.
If you are a Samsung user, you can expect to see this change on your device with Android 15-based One UI 7.0 rather than One UI 6.0. Looking at Samsung's track record, One UI 7 could be released a few months after Google releases the final version of Android 15 in mid-2024.
