Thanks to treble, Galaxy S9 gets AOSP ROM based on Android 8.1 already

Whether you consider the looks, the hardware, or the price point – Galaxy S9 and S9+ from Samsung are winners in most ways. However, one of the biggest additions for software developers that came with the 2018 flagship was its inclusion of Project Treble.

For the uninformed, Project Treble is simple Google’s solution to fixing the fact that Android software updates take way too long to reach your mobile devices. Thanks to this very Project Treble, developing stable custom ROMs for supported devices is quicker than ever, take the Galaxy S9 for example.

Less than a week since its launch, the Galaxy S9 already has a custom AOSP ROM based on Android 8.1 Oreo ready to roll. Given that Samsung launched the S9 sets with Android 8.0, this is already one major update for the S9 via unofficial channels. Are they days of AOSP gearing back?

As tried out on the Exynos variant of the Galaxy S9 by XDA user iamnotkurtcobain, the basic networking and usability features of the custom ROM such as the camera, Wi-Fi, network connectivity, and other such stuff is working flawlessly. Credit also goes to another XDA’er, minz1, for his help with the ROM, which in turn is actually the phh-Treble ROM by phhusson.

There are limitations to the custom ROM however since Samsung-specific hardware features like the iris scanner do not work with the custom ROM. The ROM isn’t available for download yet, BTW, but these screenshots are a reason we believe the ROM would be available for download soon enough.

Unlocking the bootloader to flash the custom ROM on the Qualcomm Snapdragon variants (handsets in the US) is not yet possible, so it would be a while before you can get cracking with a custom TWRP recovery on the Galaxy S9 or flash a custom ROM on the US variants.