If a recent anonymously sourced report is to be believed, Google might begin forcing smartphone manufacturers to keep their Android systems up-to-date -- otherwise Google will remove support for key Google apps.

Install New(ish) Android On New Devices, Or Else

The report -- cautiously published on Monday by Android Police, two weeks after getting an anonymous tip in their inbox -- states that Google will force OEMs (manufacturers like Samsung, HTC, and LG) who use the Android OS on their devices to keep the software updates coming, or else. Supposedly, if manufacturers do not ship their smartphones with preinstalled operating systems that reach certain levels of Android freshness, Google will not support Google Mobile Services on their hardware.

That's a hefty penalty that no Android OEM would want levied against their devices, since Google Mobile Services (GMS) are the Google Apps like Gmail, Search, Maps, and other apps that are expected to come on an Android device.

Android Police received a table with the ostensible API level of Android and a corresponding timetable when GMS approval windows close. For all Android operating systems as old or older than the first Android Jelly Bean 4.1 (API level 16) -- including Ice Cream Sandwich, Honeycomb, and the now-ancient Gingerbread -- GMS approval ended on Feb. 1. GMS support for Android Jelly Bean 4.2 and 4.3, which are not quite as out of date, is nevertheless slated to end by mid-year this year.

If accurate, this means no smartphone or tablet certified in the second half of 2014 will have support for preinstalled Google apps unless they run KitKat -- which effectively means that no mobile Android device released in late 2014/early 2015 will be running anything but Android 4.4 KitKat. Beyond that, the purported Google time table means OEMs will have approximately nine months after each Android update to certifiy new smartphones before being mandated to release devices with an updated operating system.

It also means, as Android Police emphatically put it, that "no OEM can certify a device more than two versions behind the current Android release."

Faster Android Updates? Nope 

However, this does applies to new OEM device certification. In no way does it necessarily mean that you'll be getting faster updates on devices that are already released -- something that Samsung customers would probably hope for. It just means that OEMs can't keep releasing new devices with terribly old versions of Android OS built-in.

This Is Probably True

Looking at the larger picture, the idea of Google pushing OEMs to keep the Android versions they preinstall on new devices relatively up-to-date isn't far fetched.

With so many manufacturers and so many devices Google has historically had a problem with operating system fragmentation -- a term that refers to the logistical nightmare of having so many old versions of the OS currently running that support, bug fixes, and other services Google would like to provide all users goes out the window.

That was one of the biggest, and least noticed, changes Google made in Android 4.4 KitKat that we previously reported. Beyond surface improvements and new features, Google -- for the first time in years -- built the newer Android 4.4 KitKat to require less memory and less processing power than its previous version.

The redesigned, lean, KitKat OS is an attempt by Google to make the newest Android something that older phones can run -- and to bring more users under the Android Big Tent, hacking away at their fragmentation and user support problem. At the same time, Google has indirectly shown its frustration with slow-to-update OEMs by releasing popular "Google Play Edition" versions of OEM devices, which run pure Android without OEM add-ons and can be updated quickly and painlessly.  

So putting OEMs' feet to the fire to keep up with the Android changes makes sense -- as long as the policy can diminish Android fragmentation without alienating manufacturers.