Google has kicked off the holiday shopping season with a great deal on the new Nexus 5X. For a limited time you can get $80 off of the latest Nexus in any color and any storage amount when you buy it through the Google Store. There are no coupon codes required. Just configure yours, add it to your cart and the discount is applied automatically. With this discount, the 16GB version of the Nexus 5X drops down to $299 while the 32GB version drops to $349.
CyanogenMod, the independent developer who has created Android builds for a multitude of devices including the OnePlus One, has announced on their blog that they have started rolling out CM13, their Android Marshmallow based image. The updates are a part of what they call nightlies which means that every night they will be releasing an update to the build for developers and those with a sense of adventure to try. Currently the nightlies are being released for the OnePlus One, Nexus 7, LG G4, LG GPad 7.0, LG G3 (Verizon), Galaxy Tab Pro 8.4 and the Moto X 2014.
In the post, CyanogenMod indicates that the plan is to release a formal build (what they call a Snapshot) in January so if you do not want to unlock your device & bootloader, flash the device yourself nightly and deal with backups, you can simply wait until January and you will get an OTA update from CM12.1 to CM13. Doing the nightlies is really aimed for those who can and are willing to beta test as this is very much a beta build. If you are not up to the task, don’t install it. There will be bugs and it will impact your daily use of your device in some cases.
HTC is making good on their promise and keeping the new One A9 up to date with security fixes. Just three weeks after Google released the latest update to Android Marshmallow, unlocked US-based One A9 owners are getting the latest update rolled out to their phones via an OTA update. It is a far cry from other vendors, including HTC themselves on other devices, that take months to roll out a security update.
If you are in the US and have a One A9, the update was approved over the weekend and has started rolling out. How fast it will take for your device to see it is not clear but it should be pretty quick. HTC doesn’t have the same staged roll out process as Google does on their Nexus devices and second, quite frankly, there are not a lot of One A9’s in the wild. My guess is you should see it by mid-week if you haven’t already (but that’s my opinion, not fact).
The Project Fi team has just sent an email out to subscribers that a new Android Marshmallow update is being released for the Nexus 6. The notification comes on the same day that T-Mobile announced a Marshmallow update for the Nexus 6 on their network and as I speculated, a Project Fi specific build likely wasn’t far behind.
There had been a lot of rumors since the release of Marshmallow that users of Project Fi would have issues getting connectivity. Specifically that the switching mechanism with the new Fi SIM, Marshmallow and the Nexus 6 meant that users could not switch from T-Mobile or Sprint on-the-fly, a key selling point of Project Fi. Thus, to this point, an update had not been sent to subscribers. That has meant that Project Fi customers have remained on Android Lollipop.
I have been running Marshmallow as a Fi user but I receive the OTA update on my Nexus 6 while I was still on AT&T (my device is unlocked and was purchased from Google directly). When I switched over to Fi, I had no issues at all and in fact have found the service to be very reliable and faster than AT&T here in Denver. Ironically I reached out to Fi support earlier today asking about this very issue to which I was told that they had not had any issues reported to them. Yet we now have a new Marshmallow build. Curious much?
If you have been waiting to get your hands on a Nexus 6P but have run into the particular color/storage combination being out of stock, today would be a good day to head back to the Google Store. All color options and all storage size options are in stock with factory out-the-door times on new orders currently pegged at 1-2 days. This is a substantial improvement over there not being any stock for some flavors or 3-4 week delivery times at the beginning of November.
For those that don’t remember, you can get the flagship Nexus 6P in three color options (Aluminium, Graphite and Frost) and three different storage size options (32GB, 64GB and 128GB). Do note that the Frost option is only available in 64GB and 128GB. Prices start at $499 for the 32GB units while the 128GB version will set you back $649.
For those of you who have a T-Mobile Nexus 6, good news has come your way from Des, the company’s Product Evangelist, on Twitter. According to a post last night, the Android Marshmallow update for the device has been tested, approved and should be rolling out very soon. The updated build is MRA58X and while no exact date was given, user could start seeing the update as soon as today if previous history is any indication.
Great News! The @TMobile #Nexus6 Marshmallow SW MRA58X has been approved & should start rolling out soon! pic.twitter.com/oiyZ5mO9MC
— Des (@askdes) November 20, 2015
With this update starting to roll out, it means that T-Mobile is the first to get Android Marshmallow out to the Nexus 6 on their network. Verizon and AT&T both sold the Nexus 6 but neither have released or committed to the update for their devices.
Keep track of the amount of data you consume on your mobile plan is something that the majority of us have to do. While there are some unlimited data plans that meet the need for power users, the rest of us usually have a limited amount each month or top up of our mobile accounts. To aid in this, there are several apps out in the Google Play Store to help you get a reasonable grasp of the amount of data you are using for a specific period of time. My personal favorite has been My Data Manager as I’ve been using it on Android and iOS and it is reasonably good at tracking not only your mobile data usage but your Wi-Fi usage at the same time.
With the release of Android Lollipop, Google added a data manager into the platform directly. Designed to give you information on your cellular usage as well as Wi-Fi, the Data usage feature in Android Marshmallow is nearly identical to that which we found in Lollipop. In this How To I will show you where to find this on your Android Phone and how to configure it to set thresholds so you will know if you are approaching your data allotment for your billing period.
In a post in their customer forums yesterday, Asus cleared up any doubt on which of their devices would see the Android Marshmallow update. Asus is one of the few manufactures who had not publicly stated (clearly at least) which devices would see the latest version of Android which certainly was causing some consternation amongst owners. While the list isn’t extensive, it does cover the major devices from Asus. The concern of course is that no timeline was mentioned in the post.