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The headline made me think Android 4.3's fstrim feature (defragging flash storage) is delivered via Play too!

That only really benefited the Nexus Devices. Far as I know no other popular device has had issues due to lack of fstrim. And all recent Nexus devices already got the 4.3 update.

But since Play Services has system level access I am wondering if they could've technically been able to stuff the fstrim daemon along with the app updates. All it does is wakes up on idle and issues trim ioctls - Linux kernel proper has had TRIM support for a while.

You can get an app that does it already, but it requires root:

https://play.google.com/store/apps/details?id=com.grilledmon...

And I think this affected more than Nexus devices, HTC One gets mentioned in the app description.

They could, but I seem to recall issuing TRIM commands can brick the onboard eMMC Flash chip on some Samsung devices.

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