In a surprising move, search engine giant Google has officially took the wraps off the next version of Android operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Google released the Android M Developer Preview couple months back, and earlier today the company has officially announced the name and version number of next major Android update.
Android 6.0 Marshmallow - Download |
Along with the announcement of Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Google has also released the final Developer Preview 3 update to the Android M preview platform, that was originally released in May 2015.
The update includes final APIs and the official Android 6.0 SDK, as well as near-final system images. "The updated system images bring a variety of fixes and enhancements across the system, including those related to issues reported by developers through the external issue tracker," says Google.
According to Google, the key changes in Developer Preview 3 include:
For a complete list of changes, including renamed and removed APIs, see the API Diff report for API level 22 to 23.
- Android Platform Change:
- Final Permissions User Interface — we updated the permissions user interface and enhanced some of the permissions behavior.
- API Change:
- Updates to the Fingerprint API — which enables better error reporting, better fingerprint enrollment experience, plus enumeration support for greater reliability.
For a complete list of changes, including renamed and removed APIs, see the API Diff report for API level 22 to 23.
Android 6.0 Marshmallow - Download |
Some of the known issues include:
- On LTE devices, including volantis, GPS is not functioning properly, which may interfere with navigation services.
- During Hangouts calls, users may experience distorted or low audio on some devices.
- The bundled Google Apps Device Policy app is unable to properly set up an Android for Work Profile, so you cannot create a new Work Profile.
You can download the official Android 6.0 SDK platform and Developer Preview 3 emulator images from the SDK Manager. You can also download the Android Marshmallow Developer Preview 3 images (TGZ files) for a manual flash for your respective Nexus device from here.
Developer Preview 3 system images for supported Nexus devices are available by download and by over-the-air (OTA) update. The OTA update is available only to supported devices that are currently running a Developer Preview build, which include Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 and Nexus Player.
We will share more information about Android 6.0 Marshmallow soon, till then do have a look at the Story of Marshmallow.