The irony being that in 2018 most new devices are being released with Nougat, with eventual update to Oreo, if at all.
Why? Nougat devices don't require Treble certification.
Why? Nougat devices don't require Treble certification.
They just keep "forgetting" to include updates on the requirements clauses.
It's significantly harder to enforce things like update requirements after a phone ships - for one thing, it's not entirely up to the OEM in many cases, it also depends on getting carriers to certify the upgrade.
Do you actually have evidence that the uptake of this specific version is slow? Otherwise I don't see any reason to believe this is out of the ordinary for Android.
I remember when it took forever to go from Donut to Eclair on my T-mobile MyTouch device... when the newest version was already Froyo.
Or perhaps you're just accustomed to monitoring this? With respect, I don't think that constitutes (neutral, inspectable) evidence, but rather witness testimony.
Except I don't know how much this will matter, given that the average user doesn't know or care about any of this stuff.
Other advertised features which don't matter to most users: the notch, AR, full size display, active display on edges, assistant updates, AMOLED, app privilege restrictions, curved displays, ... They're all good for advertisement and gimmicks. They may improve the phone a little bit. They're not needed and almost everybody cares only because they were advertised. (If they care at all)
Treble does not require OEMs to push updates.
This has been clearly explained on the ADB Podcast and nowhere to be seen on the certification requirements.
Hey look, the S9 and S9+ are launching with Oreo, the S8 is steadily getting it, and the Note 8 will be getting it realy soon!
But Samsung does have a large market share and them moving to Oreo right now will make the numbers start to shift pretty quickly.
Basically, Android adoption tends to be glacially slow for quite a few months (~2% total), fast for the next few (up into the 20% range), and then the growth slows again for the next year or so with no single version ever quite hitting 50%.