Older Android phones and, now, Android tablets now have access to a more glorified Google type and voice search interface.
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Android distribution for November shows sluggish progress for Nougat, Oreo
Growth is on par with Nougat at this infant stage, but for Nougat, it is maturing slower than how Marshmallow did with users.
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Nougat gains another 2 percent in September’s Android distribution numbers, finally beating KitKat
With Oreo not in yet, Nougat continues to trail Marshmallow and Lollipop's Android distribution scores, at least making the podium for the first time.
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Nougat near a year in, Android distribution report gives it 2 percent progress
The numbers for August 2017 are up and, as always, we're dealing with underperformance from Android 7.0 and 7.1 versus Marshmallow.
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OnePlus 5 scores another round of ‘optimizations’, OnePlus 2 also gets a minor software update
There's no rest for software engineers in charge of OnePlus 5 stability, with yet another update out OTA. The OnePlus 2 is also getting some love.
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BLU Life One X (2016) updated to Android… Marshmallow
A phone from December 2015 is getting updated with software that was released in October of that year. Perhaps you do get what you pay for.
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Nougat nears 10 percent adoption, Marshmallow finally beats Lollipop in June Android distribution figures
The latest Android distribution numbers are in, and of course, Nougat still trails behind new pack leader Marshmallow and silver medalist Lollipop.
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Oppo R9 Plus, R9 and F1s score Android Marshmallow, yes, Marshmallow update in Australia
2016 called, and it wants its software updates back from OPPO, which only now rolls out Android 6.0 Marshmallow for the R9, R9 Plus and F1s.
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Latest Google Play Services APK should force Google Assistant onto your phone
If you're hearing about other people in your area getting Google Assistant and you still don't have it, you can rush it onto your phone.
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Two-year-old Droid Turbo gets Android 6.0.1 update
The latest and greatest? How about Android Marshmallow?
The original DROID Turbo, which was stuck on its original KitKat build for the longest time, is now beginning to leave behind 5.1 Lollipop after 17 months. No, we’re not talking about an immediate jump to Nougat — odds are that will never happen. But we do see Android 6.0.1 taking shape.
Sources to Droid Life have shown off the feature list for the update. Yes, it includes Wi-Fi Calling, Google Now on Tap (now known as Screen Search) and Doze mode. The software version is 24.81.5 and comes with the September level security patch — we all make do with what we can.
Those within and outside of Verizon’s soak testing groups have gotten the update while some have complained that installing the package bricked their Turbos. Hey, once you come to some 25 months out of release, you have to begin to wonder you should be switching out your daily driver.
Nevertheless, for those who stick to their Verizon-exclusive DROIDs like they stick to their guns, here’s to you.
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Android distribution ends 2016 mostly with Lollipop
The Android platform distribution chart is about to get cleaned up soon, thanks to an upcoming revision in Google Play Services access. But until that happens, we’re still staring at Android 2.2 Froyo listing, stuck at a stupidly stubborn 0.1 percent.
This month’s chart, made up from Google Play Store access data for the week ending December 5, has 7.0 Nougat making a very slight gain from its initial reading last month while further moves favored the now-second place 6.0 Marshmallow. 5.0 Lollipop retains the top spot.
| Version | Codename | API | Distribution | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.2 | Froyo | 8 | 0.1% | N/A |
| 2.3.3-2.3.7 | Gingerbread | 10 | 1.2% | -0.1% |
| 4.0.3-4.0.4 | Ice Cream Sandwich | 15 | 1.2% | -0.1% |
| 4.1.x-4.3 | Jelly Bean | 16-18 | 12.8% | -0.9% |
| 4.4 | KitKat | 19 | 24.0% | -1.2% |
| 5.0-5.1 | Lollipop | 21-22 | 34.0% | -0.1% |
| 6.0 | Marshmallow | 23 | 26.3% | +2.3% |
| 7.0 | Nougat | 24 | 0.4% | +0.1% |
Well into Android 7.0’s third month of availability and its second month registering measurable share, we find that the initial burst of native devices like the Pixel and the V20 as well as a mix of Nexus inclusions has worn off a bit. We’ll probably find more momentum for the platform as Samsung releases the Android Nougat update to Galaxy S7 devices.
At Marshmallow’s third month of availability, we find that Android 6.0 notched 0.7 percent of the pie.
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SD Association issues new ratings for running apps off of SD cards
With Android allowing for Adoptable Storage and the integration of SD cards into the actual flash disk on the phone, you’ll want to make sure that the microSD card you’re using is fit to be attached as part of the device’s internal storage in order to run apps direct from the card.
Well, the Secure Digital Association is out with a new specification, SD 5.1, that introduces the Application Performance Class. Yes, another class rating beyond Speed Classes and UHS Speed Classes, but this one is important if you’re storing more than your pictures, songs and video on your card.
The new rating guarantees that an SD card can maintain a minimum amount of constant input-output accesses per second.
The new and only Class A1 rating sets a standard for read rates of 1,500 IOPS, write rates of 500 IOPS and sequential streams of at least 10MB/s. More ratings will be created as cards and requirements become faster.
Of course, UFS 2.0 cards are also coming into play and they’re already speedy enough to be used in Adoptable Storage. It’s a matter of how much consumers are willing to pay in the technology’s commercial infancy.
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Samsung Galaxy Note 5 gets Grace UX update
Software and user interface change-ups are the rage this weekend as the Galaxy Note 5 — the latest and greatest Galaxy Note out there — finally gets the bright and refined Grace UX update. This interface originally appeared on the Galaxy Note 7.
XDA-Developers forum member TokyoGuy just happened to be swiping around his recently reset Note 5 after returning his recalled Note 7. The Note 5 received an 600MB OTA update and, doing his due diligence, TokyoGuy, also known as Matthew, downloaded and installed it.
“When the phone rebooted, I was absolutely floored to find none other than the Note 7’s Grace UX on the phone,” Matthew said.
The feature set also includes the nighttime-oriented blue light filter, something that even the Galaxy S7 edge doesn’t have with its Grace UX package, though it could be a complication between Android versions — the update makes no change to the Note 5 with it being stuck on Android 6.0.1 while Android Nougat came along with the changes for the Galaxy S7.
Weirdly enough, the kernel dates back to October 24 and the unit was one specifically for KT Telecom. We’d like to see if other Note 5 units from other telcos are getting this update as-is.
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“Bring back Night Mode” campaign successful, Nexus 6P, 5X expecting future release
The battle for a night viewing mode on the Nexus phones has been a hard fought one and Google’s actions in introducing it, then removing it, then pulling an obstruction act on its availability has only frustrated many developers who have wanted a first-party solution to the saving their eyes from straining blue light.
We heard a while back that the Android Engineering Team were pin-focused on getting a usable, efficient solution for making it work between the right hardware and tricks in software. It makes sense to have the right hardware parts produce visible results as software keeps working within its color gamut to product right-looking screenshots.
The kerfuffle has ended up at a point where the Pixel and the Pixel XL now have a Night Light mode while the 2015 Nexus devices are left without driver support for the proper hardware composition. And it has been this way even with the Android 7.1 Developer Preview.
As developers have taken to the AOSP Issue Tracker forums to complain to Google to extend some sort of night reading mode for the Nexus 5X and 6P, one project member has marked the feature down for a future release.
We’re not sure how far down the future we’re talking about, but the hope is back and so might be the feature. Whether it will be a permanent player is also yet to be seen.
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Android Nougat distribution logged for November 2016
After two full months in the hands of developers and consumers, Android Nougat has registered measurable market share in the software version distribution numbers. Meantime, Marshmallow is still struggling to make it to the quarter mark.
The Android Developers Blog jumped October and has left us with November figures, meaning there’s two months of progress to track.
| Version | Codename | API | Distribution | Change |
|---|---|---|---|---|
| 2.2 | Froyo | 8 | 0.1% | N/A |
| 2.3.3-2.3.7 | Gingerbread | 10 | 1.3% | -0.2% |
| 4.0.3-4.0.4 | Ice Cream Sandwich | 15 | 1.3% | -0.1% |
| 4.1.x-4.3 | Jelly Bean | 16-18 | 13.7% | -1.9% |
| 4.4 | KitKat | 19 | 25.2% | -2.5% |
| 5.0-5.1 | Lollipop | 21-22 | 34.1% | -0.9% |
| 6.0 | Marshmallow | 23 | 24.0% | +5.3% |
| 7.0 | Nougat | 24 | 0.3% | +0.3% |
Only the two latest versions of Android gained market share these past two months while all other versions lost share.
As we’ve noted through the growth of 6.0, Marshmallow has consistently lagged behind Lollipop’s growth at comparable stages. Indeed, we find that just as Marshmallow was registering a share of 0.3 percent in November 2015, Lollipop was able to grab 25.6 percent.
But we’re on a new version with a new digit and a new compare period. Let’s see if Nougat can glue manufacturers rather than fragment them.
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