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Google's AOSP changes may make custom ROMs harder to build for Pixel devices

In March 2025, Google announced that it was moving Android development to a closed environment. Now, it has made some changes to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) that could signal the end of custom ROMs for Pixel phones.

The idea to develop the operating system in private was to streamline the process. Google released Android 16 this week, along with its source code to AOSP under the Apache 2.0 license. But, Google did not publish the device trees for Pixel devices. In fact, the new driver binaries were missing too, and the kernel source code did not have a full commit history. This has made some custom ROM developers worried, and questioned whether AOSP was ending.

Android Authority's Mishaal Rahman reports that Seang Chau, Google’s VP and GM of Android Platform, has denied that the company is discontinuing AOSP. However, he did confirm that the omission of Pixel tree devices was intentional. Apparently, "AOSP needs a reference target that is flexible, configurable, and affordable — independent of any particular hardware, including those from Google."

Google will work on supporting the virtual Android device “Cuttlefish” as the reference target instead of AOSP for Pixel devices, as well as generic system images (GSI). A simulated device and an actual hardware vary greatly, this could result in more bugs.

A LineageOS developer, Nolen Johnson, says that this could make creating ROMs for Pixel phones difficult, because instead of just pulling the configurations that Google created, and adding their customizations, and then build a custom ROM, developers will need to rely on Android 15 device tress, to guess and reverse engineer the changes made to Android 16. This could be a time-consuming challenge. Without a kernel source code commit history, it may be difficult for other devices to port features, bug fixes or security patches. Google's changes to AOSP could impact LineageOS, GrapheneOS severely.

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