Category: Android Marshmallow

Google has released the Compatibility Definition Document for Android Marshmallow and there are a lot of important elements to it for phone OEMs.  For those who may not be familiar with it, the guide serves as a roadmap of what a device most possess and do in order to be certified by Google as being compatible with Android Marshmallow.  These guides are not new as Google publishes on with each release of Android.  While it is a bit of a technical read, it is still a good read as it will help you understand what a device must have and do in order to get Google’s blessing.

A key tidbit in the Compatibility Definition Document for Android Marshmallow is section 8.3 on Power Saving Modes.  Effectively the rules are simple:  OEMs cannot alter or hide the new Doze feature in Marshmallow.  Why is this important?  Doze could well be the killer feature of Android Marshmallow and it has proven to save a huge amount of battery life when your device sits idle.  By preventing OEMs from altering how Doze works, it means everyone who upgrades to Marshmallow will see the benefits.

And that is a very good thing.

With the shipment of 1st day orders of the Nexus 5X starting today, Google has made a few interesting posts on their various sites today.  First, as you saw earlier, you can now get a zero wait Project Fi invite to try the service out.  Second came the posting of the factory image for the Nexus 5X, codename “bullhead”.  Interesting, Google posted three images for the 5X, all based on Android Marshmallow.  The latest update is MDB08I.

For those who are unfamiliar, the factory images are the full Android images for Nexus devices that you can install on your device instead of waiting for the OTA update.  Generally speaking only developers should need to load these images but Google explains on the site how to install these on your Nexus devices if you chose to do so.

The number of manufactures who have committed to bringing the Android Marshmallow update to their devices has already been impressive.  Today it got just that much better.  Chinese manufacture Huawei (who also makes the new Nexus 6P) has committed to bringing the latest version of Android to no less than 15 of their devices.  The news came from a leaked document on GizmoChina that points to the laundry list of devices that will be seeing Marshmallow.  While dates and timelines were not covered, clearly the company is set on getting the update out to a lot of their devices.  That is only good news given the features (like Doze) and security benefits that Android Marshmallow brings.

Review of Android Marshmallow

Amazon has released an update to the Amazon Shopping app for Android Phones that brings a mix of updates and new features.  From an updates perspective, this new version 6.0.0.100 supports all of the run-time permissions for those of you who are running Android Marshmallow.  This is part of the overall improvements in app permissions that has come with the latest version of Android (You can read about them in my review of Android Marshmallow).  These new permissions are important for the other big news that comes with this update to the Amazon Shopping app:  Voice commands.

Amazon Shopping for Android – Free – Download Now

It looks like we will see OnePlus’ latest offering, the OnePlus X, in a few weeks time in London.  On the company’s twitter account, a teaser post was made with a image of a lit X as part of the post.

See you October 29, London. #PowerfullyBeautiful pic.twitter.com/JxS5YQviPX

— OnePlus (@oneplus) October 14, 2015

The post seems to confirm that the OnePlus X, the smaller sibling to the OnePlus 2, will be launched worldwide on the 29th.  While it is good to see OnePlus expanding their portfolio, the company is having some almighty challenges getting stock on their flagship phone.  The only hope is that they have sorted that out for the OnePlus X.

Good news for those of you who have ordered the new Nexus 5X and Nexus 6P as it looks like your phones could ship as early as this week.  Multiple people have reported that their orders for the new Android Marshmallow-based phones have moved from “Preorder” to “Pending”, an indicator that Google is preparing to start shipping the devices.  While Google has not confirmed this in any way, other leaks report to internal documents indicating an October 13th ship date for the Nexus 5X.  That’s tomorrow peeps.