Apple bragged about the speed of iOS 10’s rollout at the company’s Mac event in October. (credit: Apple)

Finally, a whopping two-and-a-half months after the release of Android 7.0 Nougat, the Android 7.0 Compatibility Definition Document (CDD) has been published. The CDD is Google’s list of rules for Android OEMs that want to ship devices with the Google Play Store and other Google apps. While Android is open source, most of Google’s apps are not, and licensing Google’s apps means agreeing to a contract called the Mobile Application Distribution Agreement (MADA) and passing Google’s “compatibility” tests, which ensure the device can properly run Android apps.

The updates to the 85-page Compatibility Definition Document are mostly about codifying the new 7.0 features so OEMs don’t break anything, but there are a few interesting tidbits. The one we’re going to focus on now is the mysterious mention of “Android Extensions.” There’s a whole new section, which reads:

3.1.1. Android Extensions

Android includes the support of extending the managed APIs while keeping the same API level version. Android device implementations MUST preload the AOSP implementation of both the shared library ExtShared and services ExtServices with versions higher than or equal to the minimum versions allowed per each API level. For example, Android 7.0 device implementations, running API level 24 MUST include at least version 1.

“Extending the managed APIs while keeping the same API level version” sounds a whole lot like what Google Play Services does today. You have the base Android operating system, and Google Play Services is a layer that sits on top of the OS. Play Services provides a bunch of Google APIs, giving developers access to various Google Services. Because Play Services is just an APK (an Android app file), it can be easily updated via the Play Store. This means that regardless of how indifferent your OEM is to updates, Play Services can always be updated directly by Google.