Like clockwork, Google has released the July Android Security updates for the platform, with both OTA and full factory images now available. Interestingly, Google has split this month’s update into two different patches. The first patch, dated July 1, is the most critical and broad reaching. It includes two critical patches and 11 high priority patches for Android. In all there are 22 fixes in this patch. The second patch, dated July 5, contains several more fixes but is more specific to drivers and specific devices. This patch has 7 critical patches and 19 high priority patches. So why split them up? Google is trying to get manufactures to update their devices faster and with the first patch being more broad its fixes, the hope is manufactures will get these updates out faster. This will in turn give them time to do testing of the second patch (which may or may not be applicable to their devices anyway) for distribution as a separate patch or even a roll up into August.
In other words, Google is trying to remove excuses by removing the device specific fixes from the general Android fixes. The question will be if it works and we see the likes of carriers and
Android Marshmallow
manufactures approving the first patch faster for their devices.
To be clear, not everyone is going to see this July 5 patch. Given that it deals with drivers and device specific features, if you don’t have one of those devices, you won’t see it. Nexus owners, you will certainly see it so keep your eyes open over the course of the next few days or weeks.
While Google has released the OTA images for the updates, the actual OTA push process hasn’t started. That likely won’t start until Friday at the earliest or even next week.
You can get all the details of everything that is patched in the Release Notes for the updates.
