Android Isn't Fun Anymore
My first smartphone was a Motorola Atrix 4g. But when I got it, it wasn’t the apps or the camera that really excited me—it was the open-source Android operating system and the opportunities for modification and customization it offered. The first thing I did when I got home from the AT&T store was to unlock the bootloader and install CyanogenMod.
Because Android is open source, anyone can download the operating system’s code and modify it. That launched a vibrant community focused on making custom versions of Android for their devices. The customized operating systems were known as custom ROMs. CyanogenMod was one of the best-known; it offered a robust set of advanced features and themes that let users style the operating system in really neat ways.
The Android modder community grew over the next several years, and the number of custom ROMs exploded. You could typically find at least one custom ROM for any device with an unlockable bootloader, and devices that were easier to modify (especially Google’s lines of Nexus and Pixel devices) often had several great options.
Removing Stuff From AOSP
Things started to change. Google gradually moved critical parts of the Android infrastructure out of the operating system and into Google Play Services, a proprietary software stack layered on top of Android. There was a good reason for that: device manufacturers were interminably slow to update their devices to new versions of Android, so their customers were stuck using old software. By moving more of the system to Play Services, Google could push updates and new features to all Android devices without waiting for manufacturers. But that move also meant that more and more of the operating system was leaving the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) and going to a proprietary, closed-source package. For the most part, modders were able to deal with this by offering packages that installed Google’s services on top of their ROMs (or simply by including those services—though there were questions about whether that violated Google’s terms of service).
That might not sound like such a big deal, but one of the key reasons to install a custom ROM was additional privacy. By moving critical components of the system into Play Services, Google forced users into a tradeoff: install Google’s additional services and sacrifice privacy, or go without important features. Modders included privacy-enhancing modifications, but installing Google’s applications still meant handing over a lot of personal data.
It also seemed like each time Google released a version of the Android operating system, certain new features didn’t work well, or at all, unless you ran the default, unmodified operating system. These were usually minor annoyances, but they started to stack up as Android matured.
Rooted Devices
Another question that faced Android enthusiasts was whether or not to root their devices. Rooting is the process of gaining administrative access to the operating system. On a rooted device, a user can modify system-level files and settings that aren’t exposed by default. Contrast this with personal computers, which typically allow users root access: indeed installing programs on a computer often requires root access. Modern operating systems present access-control prompts to prevent unauthorized programs (like malware) from gaining administrative access, and root software for Android devices used a similar system.
Root access opened up a whole new array of modifications and customizations (things like theming, ad-blocking, and fine-grained application controls). It also presented security risks, but if you were careful about which apps you granted root access to, you were generally OK.
Then Google started cracking down on rooted devices, allowing app developers to prevent their apps from running on rooted devices (this was largely a push from services like banks that viewed it as a security vulnerability). Google also started blocking features, like mobile payments, on rooted devices.
At first, this just presented modders with another choice: root your device and lose some features, or keep it unrooted—even if you’d installed a custom ROM—and retain access to everything. But as Google expanded its detection features, it started identifying devices with unlocked bootloaders, not just those with root access, as insecure. This was a major problem because installing any custom ROM requires unlocking the bootloader. It was becoming increasingly more difficult to run a custom ROM at all. And about a month ago, Google updated its security checks to make it even harder—close to impossible for many users—to run certain applications on modified devices.
Android 16
Google released the latest version of Android, Android 16, on June 10. If you’ve installed the update, you’d be excused for not noticing. The pace of change with mobile operating system updates has slowed dramatically over the past few years, as we’ve figured out functionality and preferences for a mode of hardware that’s been largely static for the last decade. To be fair, Google has promised more exciting interface changes later this year, but still. The tech news website Ars Technica used to be (in)famous for its long, detailed reviews of mobile operating systems—its review of Android 12 in 2021 ran to almost 12,000 words. The review of Android 16 didn’t crack 2,000 and boasted the tagline, “The age of big, exciting Android updates is probably over.”
The latest release is perhaps the most humdrum version of the platform yet.
So, while it’s getting harder and harder to modify Android and find good custom ROMs, the official Android updates are getting less and less interesting.
In adition to the mundane update, Google also stopped publicly releasing device hardware repositories along with Android’s open-source code. The basic problem is this: you can’t just build AOSP and expect it run on any device. You need a bunch more stuff, including device-specific code, drivers, and more to actually get the operating system to boot. Some of that stuff is proprietary (and closed-source), but Google used to publish binaries and code for its Pixel devices along with the AOSP code. That made it much easier for developers to make modified versions of Android for Pixels. It also helped developers working on devices with similar hardware. It turns out it’s still possible to request the hardware repos from Google, but it’s another hurdle for Android developers that prompted a series of frantic headlines in the modder community.
It’s not Just About the Fun
Samsung and Google offer seven years of Android updates for most of their top-of-the-line devices, but that’s a fairly recent phenomenon. Phones more than a few years old were lucky to get more than three major version updates. As a result, the Android open source community has done much of the heavy lifting to keep older devices running up-to-date software.
I still have a Pixel 3a XL, which was a great phone in its day. Unfortunately, it recieved its last Android version update in May 2022, and no longer receives security updates, either. There have been a lot of important security improvements over the last three years (not to mention the new features and other advantages of more recent Android versions), and thankfully some hardworking open source developers modify Android to run on older devices. I love PixelBuilds, an Android ROM that brings Android 15 to older Pixel devices.
Until recently, PixelBuilds included modifications so that it could spoof most of Google’s security checks. As a result, I could run a modern version of Android with recent security updates on my Pixel 3a XL, even though Google stopped providing official updates years ago. But Google is no longer allowing custom ROMs to appear secure to Android apps and stores. As a result, users are forced into a choice with no good options: run an outdated operating system with known security vulnerabilities, or run a newer, more secure version but lose access to many critical apps.
What that would mean for you as a user? You have to make a choice! Either you sacrifice some of the convenience and adapt to the OSS way of things, or you stay locked up in a shiny golden cage and, eventually, run to buy a new phone cause having an unlocked bootloader is punishable by inability of using your apps now.
Android Isn’t Fun Anymore
The combination of all these factors—moving critical features out of AOSP, discouraging rooting, putting up obstacles to development, and the stodgy recent updates—means that Android just isn’t fun anymore. Yes, our phones and tablets are tools that we use to work and communicate and manage our lives. It’s good that we’ve settled on some foundational principles that govern how mobile operating systems work, and it’s inarguable that Android has improved a lot in its 17-year existence. But the modder community was always opt-in; that was its beauty. You could stick with the OS that came with your device and not worry about it at all, you could spend hours and hours building and installing something entirely different, or anything in between.
And as we’ve seen, it’s not just about fun. The Android open source community is critical in ensuring that older devices can run secure, up-to-date operating systems, even if those devices’ manufacturers have abandoned them. By limiting AOSP, Google forces users of older devices to run outdated and insecure software or risk losing access to critical applications.
I’m currently rocking a Pixel 9 Pro XL. It’s a great phone, undoubtedbly the best one I’ve owned. But it’s also the first one I haven’t unlocked and rooted, the first one where I haven’t tried running a custom ROM. Google has finally won: the impediments they’ve added ever so gradually to modifying Android have just made it too much of a hassle to experiment with a device that’s so important to my daily life. The The crazy fun of the early era is over, and that makes me sad.