Category: Android Marshmallow

Today over at Amazon you can pick up a great deal on a great Android phone.  The Moto X Pure Edition is on sale, today only, with the 32GB unit down to just $349.99, $100 off the regular price.  That price makes the 32GB model $50 less than the 16GB model.  Amazon includes free standard shipping but you can of course pay extra for faster shipping if needed.  The model being sold by Amazon is unlocked and supports a wide range of cellular bands:

• LTE 1 / 2 / 3 / 4 / 5 / 7 / 8 / 12 / 13 / 17 / 25 / 26 / 41
• WCDMA 1 / 2 / 4 / 5 / 8
• CDMA 800 / 850 / 1900
• GSM 850 / 900 / 1800 / 1900

For you Verizon users, it also supports VoLTE.

The Moto X Pure Edition is powered by a Snapdragon 808 processor running at 1.8GHz, coupled with 3GB of RAM.  It comes with a 21MP rear facing camera and a 5MP front facing camera and has a 5.7″ 1440 x 2560 resolution display.  You can also augment the 32GB of built-in storage with up to a 128GB MicroSD card.  As the name suggests, the Moto X Pure Edition runs a slimmed down, very close to stock Android experience meaning that you won’t find a lot of replacement apps or bloatware pre-installed.  As one who has been running Nexus devices for a while now, there is something to be said for using Android the way Google intended and this phone will give you that experience (remember that Motorola built the Nexus 6 so they know how to do it right).

Moto X Pure Edition on Amazon – 32GB On Sale $349.99 – Today Only

While the vast majority of the world is still waiting for Android Marshmallow to hit their devices for the first time, that doesn’t mean that Google themselves have stopped pushing the mobile platform forward.  This week the company released the 6.0.1 update and many Nexus 5, 5X, 6, 6P, 7 and 9 owners are already seeing the update hit their devices.  The numbering convention somewhat gives it away that this update is a minor update but it is more than then monthly security updates that Google sends out for Android.  There are several new features along with a smattering of improvements and updates to Android itself.

The first and likely most visible change to most users is the new set of unicode 8 emoji that come in Android Marshmallow 6.0.1.  This brings Android on par with iOS when it comes to emoji, something that generally Google has lagged on in the past.  The new emoji include updates to virtually all of the ones in Android as well as brings a pile of new ones including country flags (to be fair, they were there before but you couldn’t access them) You can get the complete list of all emoji on all platforms over at the unicode.org site although the team over at Ars Technica have put together a specific list for Android that is pretty handy.

If you are a HTC One A9 owner on AT&T, it is a good day for you.  HTC’s Mo Versi announced on Twitter last night that the December Android Marshmallow update is now starting to roll out to your device.

Happy Tuesday! AT&T HTC One (A9) Owners – The latest security updates including improvements to the camera will be OTA’d out by tonight.

— Mo Versi (@moversi) December 8, 2015

When they released the One A9, HTC committed to having updates out for the device 15 days after they were released from Google.  So far, they are sticking to their promise but what makes this interesting is that AT&T is involved.  The commitment from HTC was that the updates would be released for unlocked devices, not those tied to carriers.  With AT&T getting the update out just days after it was released from Google, it would seem that the carrier is working hard to get device updates out quicker, something they have sorely lacked in the past.

While the numbers are not dramatic, Android Marshmallow continues to gain in use and share according to the latest Android Developer Dashboard on versions of Android in use.  The latest version of the mobile OS made its debut in the report last month and as of the report today, is on .5% of all devices that went to the Google Play Store for the period ending December 7, 2015.  That is up from .3% in the initial report.  Although it is far from where everyone would like it to be, the growth is significant in these early days of Marshmallow as it shows more manufactures are getting the update out to their devices.

In comparison however, Android Lollipop still has 29.5% share which actually increased a bit as well over last month while KitKat, the top version out there, fell by nearly 1% which should be expected at this point in the life cycle of the release.

Google has released the December update for Android Lollipop and Marshmallow, holding true to their monthly security updates to the mobile platform.  The new images for Nexus devices has been released for OTA updates as well as factory images and for Marshmallow, it will be known as 6.0.1.  If you have a Nexus device, you can expect to start seeing the update over the next couple of days unless you are locked to a carrier in which case it will be a bit longer.

The update contains no less than 16 vulnerability fixes, the most severe of which allowed for remote code execution.

The most severe of these issues is a Critical security vulnerability that could enable remote code execution on an affected device through multiple methods such as email, web browsing, and MMS when processing media files.

In all there were 4 critical issues addressed along with 10 high risk issues and 2 moderate risk issues.

In addition to the sale on the Nexus 5X I posted on earlier this morning, Google is also running a great deal on the Nexus 9 tablet.  Right now you can get the 8.9″ tablet for $200 off with the base configuration starting out at just $199.  That price point puts this flagship tablet that is upgradeable to Android Marshmallow in line with some less-than-flagship tablets.  It is a steal really for such a great device.

The sale is on any configuration and color.  For example, the Wi-Fi only 16GB version is $199 while the Wi-Fi/LTE 32GB version is $399.  If you wanted a 32GB Wi-Fi only unit then you can pick that up for only $279.

Nexus 9 – Starting at $199 (SALE) – Google Store