Play Store updateable Neural Networks API still coming to Android
These days, some of the most important new smartphone features and performance gains to be found have to do with AI-powered workloads. So it wasn’t any surprise when Google and Qualcomm announced last year that they wereplanning to make the Neural Networks APIs that power those features on Android updateable via Google Play Services— one small part of Android’s growing update modularity. At first, we thought those plans might have been abandoned when Google pushed through a series of commits to AOSP reverting changes tied to the feature, but the company now confirms the plans for a Play Store updatable API are still on.
According tochangesrecentlypushedto the AOSP Gerrit, spotted byEsper.io’s Mishaal Rahman, Google seemed to be giving up on the updateable NNAPI, which would have worked through a Play Store-providedAPEXmodule, similar to themainlinemodules some of our readers might be familiar with, and separate updateable hardware drivers delivered through Play Services.
Google did not explain why it was giving up on the change, but Google’s Oli Gaymond, involved with the endeavor,later confirmed on Twitterthat plans for an updatable NNAPI were still on. Some design details may have changed, but it is currently “in testing,” indicating a timeline thatmaystill see it land as part of Android 13.
An updateable API would have clear benefits. Updating components of the system separately from the system itself is always a boon to promptly patching security holes without waiting on manufacturers to deliver updates, and it serves to add extra standardization to how those bits are implemented. But, it also means that new features and improvements can be backported to older hardware more easily — teaching old smartphone dogs new tricks, as it were.
For a fast bit of context, APIs are how developers interact with the system, applications, and its hardware. The days of writing everything directly in machine-understood assembly code arelonggone for most software developers. Now hardware has several different abstraction layers on top of that which make the process much simpler and more universal while also enhancing security and performance. Android’sNeural Networks API (NNAPI)allows developers to take advantage of various heterogeneous compute methods (a fancy way of saying different pieces of hardware that compute things in different ways) for AI-specific workloads.
The Neural Networks API means app-makers don’t have to figure out which task needs to go where.
See, AI and machine learning workloads usually don’t operate at their best in a typical CPU environment. Sometimes they need to run a ton of low accuracy calculations in parallel all at once — in circumstances like that, a GPU, ISP, or another optimized piece of hardware is better. Many recent chipsets even have dedicated components just for specialized machine learning workloads. The NNAPI means developers don’t have to worry about any of that, and when they need to accomplish a task, the API and the software beneath it ensure that it ends up at the right place to do it best without any fuss.
When it first appeared that an updateable NNAPI was being shelved, we had assumed that Google was probably continuing to work on a different implementation, and that appears to be true according to the latest word from Google. While it may not be exactly what was described in the prior AOSP commits, a Play Services-updated NNAPI is still coming for Android.
UPDATE: 2022/02/23 11:20 EST BY RYNE HAGER
Updatable APIs still coming
According to Google’s Oli Gaymond, updateable NNAPIs are still planned, and they will still update through Play Services, but the specifics for part of how it will work may have changed, causing a delay.
Our coverage has been updated.
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