Kadir Can AkıncıGoogle has been releasing updates for the open source AOSP phone and messaging app as well as its own Google branded apps. The AOSP phone app or dialer app had features such as simple making calss and contact saving, while the messaging app also performed functions such as sending or receiving SMS and MMS.
The open source dialer and messaging apps available on the AOSP builds of Android have not been updated as frequently as Google apps actually, the interface of the AOSP phone and messaging app looks quite outdated while Google Messages and Google Phone app receive regular updates.
End of support for AOSP phone and messaging app
A tech blogger on Twitter has revealed Google’s recently added statement that says “This app is not actively supported and the source is only available as a reference. This project will be removed from the source manifest sometime in the future.”
Based on this statement, Google’s AOSP dialer and messaging apps won’t have any updates and Google might even ship future AOSP releases without a messaging or phone app by default. We will see what Google will do next; what will happen in the future is still uncertain at the moment.
You might think this is a bad move from Google, but the AOSP phone and messaging app in custom ROMs have also not been updated for a long time. Developers have therefore started to make their own open source dialer and messaging apps. With this step, Google is essentially inviting Android phone manufacturers to either force them to use their own Google branded apps communication apps, Google Messages and Google Phone, or if they don’t do this OEMs have to make their own dialer and messaging apps from scratch.
