If that's not impressive enough, let's talk
about monthly security patches, a new initiative designed to prevent Android devices from falling victim to the latest hacks and vulnerabilities.
These maintenance releases will come out regularly, bringing bug fixes and potentially new features, much like
how monthly security patches address vulnerabilities discovered in Android.
The company itself has stated that customers better forget
about monthly security patches, which will deter the more safety conscious Android enthusiasts.
According to Google, this update to Android 7.1.2 Nougat will be rolled out gradually over the coming weeks and other than coming in with a new version of the OS, it also carries several bug fixes, new features, general stability and performance enhancements as well as the
latest monthly security patch for the month of April.
It carries software version 4.23.425.1 and other than coming in with the latest Android 7.0 Nougat OS, it also packs a bunch of system performance enhancements, bug fixes as well as the latest
monthly security patch from Google.
HMD Global is promising faster software updates than most third - party Android devices as a result and says it'll stay on top of Google's
monthly security patches as well.
The BlackBerry PRIV has reached the end of its life as far as software updates are concerned, and will no longer receive
monthly security patches going forward.
Many Android phone makers, including Samsung and LG, will now
offer monthly security patches to ensure that any known vulnerabilities will be patched.
While monthly security patches for Android devices rarely introduce problems beyond minor bugs, the February 2018 update is much more robust than the average package Google pushes out to its products on a monthly basis; the software includes added code meant to enable the Pixel Visual Core, Google's first custom - made chip for smartphones found inside the Pixel 2 and Pixel 2 XL.
April's
monthly security patch features a large number of updates from general performance to battery to Wi - Fi, with 56 in total spanning the Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Pixel, and Pixel 2.
Despite the fact that the expense would be even greater when spread across such a massive lineup of flagship devices, Samsung has fully committed to the new
monthly security patch program, and continues to issue security updates on a timely schedule.
In practice, you can
expect monthly security patches for the Nokia 6 (2018) to actually be distributed on a monthly basis and HMD is unlikely to skip any of them like the vast majority of other Android OEMs do.
As for security updates — arguably more important than Android platform upgrades — Dr. Wang says Huawei will
target monthly security patches for its new flagship phones, assisted by Project Treble.
Meanwhile, we may not see Android developers address this until the
news monthly security patch at the end of the first week in August.
The forthcoming software update could be the last one for Nexus 6,
excluding monthly security patches, since the device is more than two years old — ancient by today's smartphone standards.
Last year when Stage Fright was making owning an Android device an act of constant faith, Google formally guaranteed that they would be keeping Nexus devices up to date
via monthly security patches for three years after release with major over the air updates continuing to roll out for at least two years.
In terms of software updates, Motorola used to be very reliable — even
with monthly security patches — but it has fallen back a bit under Lenovo.
Google
releases monthly security patches for Android, which help in keeping the system protected against attacks — especially when a specific vulnerability is found that malicious applications are trying to exploit.
All Nokia - branded smartphones launched by HMD currently run on the Android 7.1.1 Nougat operating system and receive
monthly security patch updates on a regular basis.
A user had asked the official support account about the delay in the release
of monthly security patches for the unlocked handsets in the US.
As for the OnePlus X in particular, the organizers state that they would be happy to
receive monthly security patches and bug fixes, given that the Nougat update is out of the question.
The update, which carries software version 5.3 that is based on Android 7.0 Nougat, also installs a
new monthly security patch for the month of November.
Seeing how HMD Global has been getting the
latest monthly security patch updates to its devices before other Android OEMs, we will not be surprised if HMD Global finishes the Oreo update rollout for all its smartphones before other companies.
At the moment, those in Europe are reporting to have received OTA updates that install the latest
monthly security patch for the month of December.
It runs over Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow, not the latest and greatest Android 7.0 Nougat (though that's coming), and the company didn't respond an inquiry asking if it'd commit to Google's
monthly security patches.
It also got upgraded to nougat about 3 months ago, and has been receiving
the monthly security patches with very little delays.
The monthly security patches that Google has been putting out for its Nexus devices have also helped, especially when these efforts were also adopted by third party manufacturers on other devices.