Wi-Fi Calling requires a kernel update?

[bbbl67]

So yesterday, it turned out that my phone was updated (I had it set to automatic updates). It seemed like a fairly major update, as it took half an hour of setting up afterwards to complete (it said it was "optimizing apps" one-by-one, and there were nearly 45 apps)! It was a bit annoying as it was doing this, and I missed several calls, because I didn't realize it was doing this in the background. They all went to the voicemail. Anyways, that's not my question. My question is, it looks like this feature requires a kernel modification. When I looked at the kernel version afterwards, it said it was running Android 6.0.1, which was the same version it was running before. So not sure why all the hubbub for keeping the exact same version of the kernel as before?

 

[LeoRex]

Not every update comes with a new version of Android in tow. If your phone was updated to allow for WiFi Calling, it could very well be the same Android version as before. You can have several different builds of the same base version... including kernels, etc... Something like WiFi calling would require a fair amount of changes... in the system, kernel, radio stack, etc.

What device is this?

 

[bbbl67]

What device is this?

ZTE Grand X 4 (Z957)

So this update can't just be achieved with a driver update or something?

 

[LeoRex]

ZTE Grand X 4 (Z957)

So this update can't just be achieved with a driver update or something?

Well... something like WiFi Calling is a fairly significant feature. Everything from the phone app to the lowest level hardware gets touched. They all have to work in concert to allow for things like trading off between a network call and WiFi call.... being able to adequately communicate with the carrier's network in order to have your phone number register with their WiFi Calling system, etc... it sounds like such a simple function but it has its fingers in everything.

 

[bbbl67]

Well... something like WiFi Calling is a fairly significant feature. Everything from the phone app to the lowest level hardware gets touched. They all have to work in concert to allow for things like trading off between a network call and WiFi call.... being able to adequately communicate with the carrier's network in order to have your phone number register with their WiFi Calling system, etc... it sounds like such a simple function but it has its fingers in everything.

Any idea why other applications needed to be re-optimized for the sort-of-new kernel? It seems to be the same kernel version. I have seen an update previously from kernel 6.0.0 to 6.0.1, and I don't think it went through all of this long re-optimizations then.

 

[anon(238680)]

needed to be re-optimized

For the same reasons as explained above, they have to be updated due to changes to the OS and potentially other apps.

 

[LeoRex]

Any idea why other applications needed to be re-optimized for the sort-of-new kernel? It seems to be the same kernel version. I have seen an update previously from kernel 6.0.0 to 6.0.1, and I don't think it went through all of this long re-optimizations then.

Because the update triggered the system to rebuild the application runtimes. This was all overhauled in 7, by the way, to eliminate those long optimization times.