Category: Android Nougat

As expected, Google has released the February Android Security Bulletin today, highlighting the security vulnerabilities and fixes addressed since last month.  The company has also released the OTA updates for the February builds which means that owners of compatible Nexus and Pixel devices will get the update shortly.

Like last month, the February update consists of two distinct patches.  The first patch, dated February 1, deals with general vulnerabilities in Android Nougat while the second patch, dated February 5, is more specific to Nexus and Pixel devices.  Both patches have security fixes but the second patch deals with security patches with specific device drivers.  In all there are 35 fixes, 8 of which are considered critical and 18 are considered high priority.  You can read about all of them in the Bulletin release notes.

Sony has begun rolling out the Android Nougat update to some of the Xperia Z3 and Xperia Z5 lineup.  The Xperia Z5 and Z5 Premium started seeing the update to the 7.0 build yesterday while today, the Xperia Z3+ and Z3+ Dual started having the update roll out to them.  The update will take several weeks to get to everyone but you can always manually check for it by going to Settings>About Phone>Software Update.  In general, you can expect the download of the update to be about 1.5GB for the phones and the update time will take 15-20 minutes including a reboot.  Once you have it installed, you will have all the goodies that come with Nougat along with some improvements in the Sony apps on the phones.

If you don’t remember what’s all in Nougat, you can take a look at my review for the highlights.

Nvidia has started pushing out the Shield Experience 5.0 update to the Nvidia Shield TV and it is massive.  While the headline will be that the streaming TV platform as been upgraded to Android Nougat, there are a huge number of new features and improvements in the update.  The first big enhancement is Amazon video integration.  Now if you have a Amazon video account (via Amazon Prime) you can stream that content from the Shield thanks to the built-in app.  The streaming from Amazon is also in 4K HDR.

The new Games app that comes with this update allows you to find compatible games for your Shield.  It gives you listings of games that are available and allows you to download them. Once they are installed, they show up as a single row within the Games apps so you can easily find them.

After wrapping up the beta program for Android Nougat last week, Samsung has pushed the button and started sending out the OTA update for the Galaxy S7 and S7 Edge.  The first to see the update will be those who participated in the beta as they will be moved to the stable build.  After that, unlocked variants of the S7 lineup will get the update.  The news of Nougat hitting the S7’s is certainly good news.  Samsung has been lackluster at best in getting major OS builds out in a timely manner but in the case of Nougat, it took about a quarter.  That’s pretty reasonable given the amount of changes and testing that has to happen for a major update.

Long with all the goodness that Nougat will bring to the S7 and S7 Edge, Samsung is also doing some minor UX updates and other under-the-cover fixes to add stability and performance.  If you don’t remember all that is in Nougat, you can catch up on it here.

Chrome OS is still in the process of having Android apps rolled out to various Chromebooks and Chromeboxes, but that doesn’t mean further improvements are coming.  According to a post on ChromeUnboxed, it looks like Android Nougat 7.1 support will be coming at some point in 2017.  Currently, Chrome OS devices that can run Android apps are running them based on the Android Marshmallow 6.0 API set.  For most of us, that’s fine.  There is however one big bonus to having things move over to Nougat:  Multi-Window support.

Right now if you run an Android app on your Chromebook, only one app at a time can be displayed, just like it was on your Android phone running Marshmallow.  With Nougat, the ability to show multiple apps and resize those windows comes into play and that could be a real game changer.  Along with this comes true multi-tasking too.

Nokia fans, it is official.  The company, at least in name, is back and has a brand new smartphone.  The Nokia 6 was launched with little fanfare late last week as CES 2017 wrapped up, pulling the covers back on the China exclusive phone.  HMD Global, the owners of the Nokia brand, had indicated they would be launched Android powered devices in 2017 and they let little time pass in the new year before making it happen.

The 5.5″ Android Nougat powered phone has some great specs for a phone that will retail for approximately $250 in China.  It fits well with HMD’s desire to offer well featured phones at competitive prices.  This certainly looks like a good start.