Rovo89: Xposed for Android 5.1 is still likely a ways off

Android 5.1 has arrived to a number of Nexus devices this week, with both factory images available and OTAs starting to rollout. While downloading to the latest version of Android fixes many bugs and is very much worthwhile, it is important to note that upgrading means you may lose support for some of your favorite modding/community tools. Case and point, Xposed currently doesn’t play nicely with Android 5.1.

Whether or not the lack of Xposed support is a deal breaker depends on your needs, but for those wondering when we might see Xposed for 5.1, Rovo89 (its creator) has now chimed in with his plans. According to the developer, he feels the best approach is to first continue his work on stabilizing Xposed for Android 5.0, with the eventual plan to port his work — if possible.

Here’s his official statement, as found in the XDA Developers Forum:

Sure, I have heard that Android 5.1 is out. However, it currently makes more sense for me to stablize Xposed for Android 5.0, as I have two productive devices plus the Genymotion emulator running on it. Hopefully, it can then be ported to Android 5.1, but that’s hard to tell without having had a look at it.

It’s generally hard to estimate any timelines for Xposed-related stuff, for mainly two reasons:

a) Working on Xposed is mainly analysis of AOSP code, traces, closed-source files, followed by some development and testing (often trial and error). I never now which other obstacles are still undiscovered, so the effort is unclear beforehand.
b) Even if I know the effort (= net time), I can’t say when I will have the time to actually work on it. For example, this week I probably won’t spend a single hour on development. Sorry, but I’m not going to sacrifice my private life for Xposed and I can’t spend several hours per evening for this project (anymore).

One of the next steps will be the creation of some scripts that help me to compile and package Xposed. Apart from simplification for me, I hope that this might help other experienced developers to try and contribute themselves (e.g by analysing the issues they noticed themselves).

Bottom-line, the developer is working hard on Xposed for Android 5.0, but can’t really estimate when he’ll be able to make the transition to Android 5.1, due to the fact that he has limited time, resources and so much about the development process is unknown that giving a true estimate just isn’t that simple.

For those that absolutely can’t live without Xposed, you might be better off sticking to Android 5.0 (or even KitKat for those that have be holding out upgrading to Lollipop until the bugs get worked out). And let’s remember folks, Rovo89 is doing all this with his free time, and so a little patience and understanding should definitely be observed.