One of the coolest features that Google announced would be part of Android N, are the so-called “seamless updates”. With this feature, users would never be slowed down by system updates, or have to deal with pesky prompts. Instead devices would do all the hard work in the background and implement all the changes after the next restart. Unfortunately, it looks like this feature won’t be showing up on any existing Android device.
Usual updates work by installing new components or altering the operating system’s code while it’s off. That’s why users need to wait for updates to install before they can use their phones and devices. But seamless updates work by installing the update package in the background, on a separate system partition. Once the process is finished and the phone is rebooted, the device boots up the OS on the updated partition, without the user having to do anything.
But this implementation obviously requires the phone or device to have two separate system partitions – which today’s devices don’t have. And while it would be technically possible to repartition devices like Google’s Nexus 5X and 6P, the company believes this to be too much of a cumbersome, and potentially dangerous, process to be worth it. And if Google believes that about its own devices, there’s little reason to doubt that other OEMs will follow this same logic. In other words, Android N’s seamless update will not be showing up on any existing devices.
Instead, users will have to wait for a new generation of smartphones and tablets, designed specifically with this feature in mind, to take full advantage of Android N’s features. This is certainly disappointing, but not unexpected, in a world where device manufacturers routinely abandon support for older models to force users to upgrade.
Source: Android Police