Pixel-only APIs in Android 17 QPR1

Android 17 QPR1, which Google began rolling out on 15 September to every Pixel from the Pixel 6 through the Pixel 11 series, adds new APIs for app developers at API level 37.1, including a new android.hardware.hid package. Its source code has not been released to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP). According to GrapheneOS, no release since Android 3.x has added new APIs without going through AOSP. Non-Pixel phones and AOSP-based systems will get them with Android 17 QPR2 in December.

GrapheneOS's announcement says it had ported its code to QPR1 before the release but does not yet have permission to ship it, so it is backporting Pixel firmware, kernel drivers and HALs to Android 17 instead. It also says the September Pixel Update Bulletin carries patches to standard Android components that were missing from the September Android Security Bulletin, and that a GPL source request it made on 1 September took more than two weeks to be answered.

Perspective

This follows from how Google now ships Android. In March 2025 Google confirmed to Android Authority that Android development would move fully in private, with the internal branch restricted to companies holding a Google Mobile Services (GMS) licence. The AOSP site states that from 2026 source code is published only in Q2 and Q4. Android 16 QPR1 still reached AOSP, weeks late. As of 27 September, AOSP has only the Android 17 release branch and nothing for QPR1. Anyone building from AOSP, whether a phone maker without a GMS licence or a project like GrapheneOS, now works months behind Pixels, and non-Google makers who want patches on time need Google's security preview access, which GrapheneOS says it has through another manufacturer.

Across Asia, the effect depends on what a phone is built on. Google's own developer guide for China tells app makers to account for handsets without Google Play services pre-installed. Huawei's HarmonyOS NEXT, according to CNBC, reportedly no longer uses Android's open-source code at all, so the AOSP schedule does not bind it. For the other Android makers in the region, GrapheneOS writes that non-Google manufacturers can ship the yearly and QPR2 releases along with security backports. The QPR1 APIs therefore reach their phones only with QPR2 in December, and after that whenever each manufacturer pushes the update.

For privacy-focused users the options are narrow. GrapheneOS is released under OSI-approved open source licences, supports only Pixels officially, and has kept shipping updates through September, including a 17 September build that backported QPR1 modem firmware and a 19 September build adding matching carrier settings. GrapheneOS's posts say it can ship some of the withheld patches early by reverse engineering them.

The project also writes that Pixels are now significantly harder to support than many other devices, and that upcoming Motorola phones will be easier because it will receive official firmware and driver code. Until those arrive, anyone who wants GrapheneOS still has to buy a Pixel, and the supported models are listed in the GrapheneOS FAQ. The official web installer needs a computer with at least 2GB of free memory and 32GB of free storage, a USB cable and a supported browser such as Chrome or Edge, and its instructions are in English. Installation starts with unlocking the bootloader, and on models that carriers can sell locked, enabling OEM unlocking needs an internet connection so the stock OS can check the phone was not sold locked.