Category: Android Marshmallow

Android Central is reporting that Samsung Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge users on AT&T are starting to see the May Android security update come to their devices.  The update brings a handful of updates that I highlighted when it was released on the 2nd of this month but don’t expect to see any new major features with it.  Interestingly, the AT&T support pages for the S7 series has not been updated yet to reflect this update has been released.  Android Central users in their forums are reporting seeing the update on both devices.

After months of delays, the Android Marshmallow update for the HTC One M8 and One M9 is finally coming to those on AT&T.  HTC’s Mo Versi tweeted yesterday that the software update had finally been approved and would start hitting devices tomorrow, May 12th.

HTC One (M8 & M9) AT&T owners! Thank you for your patience. Marshmallow OS is approved, OTA to start tomorrow!!

— Mo Versi (@moversi) May 11, 2016

While it is not expect that every M8 or M9 will see the update tomorrow, it should come to you as an OTA update over the course of the next week or so.  Once you have it, all of the goodness that is Android Marshmallow will be there for you.

Android Marshmallow continues to grow in adoption as its install base has now reached 7.5% of devices coming to the Google Play Store over the course of the week ending May 2nd.  That figure represents a 2.9% increase over the same report last month or a growth of 72% over the course of the month.  With the number of devices that have received the Marshmallow update over the course of the last 4 weeks, the news is hardly a surprise but it is great to see nevertheless.  Perhaps equally as important, Marshmallow is the only flavor of Android that is gaining in install base.

For those of you who have the excellent LG G3 on the T-Mobile network, today is a great day.  The carrier has started pushing out the Android Marshmallow update to the device, bringing it up to version 6.0 of Android and all the goodness that the release has in it.  The updated version you are looking for is build H63120b and while T-Mobile on their support page do not given an indication of size, if other updates are any indication, you can expect about a 1GB download from Lollipop to Marshmallow.  That means you will need to be on Wi-Fi to download it and you can expect the total update time to take about 30 minutes.

Google has just released the factory images and security bulletin for the May 2016 Android Security Update.  Those who want to manually flash their Nexus devices to the latest build can get the images to do so while those who want to wait until the OTA is available will have a few more days or weeks to wait.  The update is a fairly big one with 25 fixes for security issues.  Once it is available via an OTA, it is highly recommended that users download it and apply it to their devices.  Of the 25 updates in the release, 6 were marked as critical and mostly focus on elevation of permissions or remote code execution.  Most users will never see these issues but Google and those who help them “bug hunt” continually work to close any potential issues before a customer encounters them.

HTC’s Senior Manager of Online Communications, Jeff Gordon, dropped a nice bit of news for those who are here in the United States wanting an HTC 10.  The latest flagship from the company will start shipping this week, unlocked, according to Gordon’s tweet.

@Eak1570 Unlocked HTC 10 begins shipping in the US next week.

— Jeff Gordon (@urbanstrata) April 29, 2016

It is great news for those who have been wanting to get the device unlocked and not with a carrier commitment.  While the Tweet did not give any indication on shipping times, it is good to know that orders can happen this week.