What you need to know
- Google will show you more information about a pending Android update in order to convince you to upgrade.
- The feature is known as Android Upgrade Invite, a user flow that will only be available if your handset is eligible for an available major Android OS upgrade.
- You will be able to install the pending Android update right from the user flow itself.
Android upgrades happen every year like clockwork, but not everyone is as eager to download and install each new version. To address this apathy, Google has devised a clever method of persuading users to install a pending Android update.
The new feature, which was spotted by Mishaal Rahman, is known as Android Upgrade Invite, and it displays a series of screens that tease about what you’ll get if you install the update.
Not everybody jumps to install the latest OS update when it’s available. To help OEMs convince those users to update their devices, Google is inviting OEMs to implement an Android Upgrade Invite. pic.twitter.com/ALx7pzQbi8July 13, 2023
“Upgrade Invite is a user flow that showcases the key new features included in the current available major Android OS upgrade,” states the feature’s documentation page.
The feature also shows a prompt that allows you to install an OS upgrade directly from the flow. Only Android OEMs with access to Google Mobile Services will be able to customize this feature to fit their brand of Android.
Similarly, OEMs will be able to modify the flow to remove features not found on their Android skin, update the language in the text blocks, or modify assets such as animations and colors to match their branding.
Users will then receive a push notification showcasing the new features available from a pending upgrade, as long as their device is eligible for the update. If the handset uses Google’s OTA service, the notification is triggered automatically when a major OS update becomes available. This will bring up the Upgrade Invite flow. Otherwise, an OEM must manually distribute the notification to users through a broadcast or API use.
Previously, Android phones would show a changelog for an update first, and it’s up to you whether to install it.
The latest feature comes as Android 13 still lags behind older versions of Android, accounting for only 12.1% of devices as of April 2023. While its adoption more than doubled since January, Android 11 remains the operating system of the majority of Android devices, with 23.5% of devices running the 2020 iteration of Android.
Whether or not the new Android Upgrade Invite works to Android 13’s (and later Android 14’s) advantage remains to be seen.
