The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 has received its first Android 6.0 Marshmallow update in the U.S., and it's not on the carrier that was expected. Verizon owners of the company's latest flagship phablet are now receiving the update OTA (over the air), ahead of AT&T, which has had a beta testing program in process for some time now, and T-Mobile, where the update remains in the manufacturer development stage.
The move was a surprise to many technology observers, who had anticipated that the first U.S. carrier to release the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update to the Galaxy Note 5 would be AT&T. That's because early this year, when Samsung officially announced an Android 6.0 Marshmallow beta testing program for many of its flagship devices, it was only the Galaxy S6 edge and Galaxy S6 edge+ that were included in the Verizon program, while AT&T's program covered the Galaxy Note 5, along with that carrier's version of the Galaxy S6 edge.
Based on those allocations to the program, it was expected that AT&T's Galaxy Note 5 would be the first U.S. version of the smartphone to receive the update. Unexpectedly however, Verizon has now published the changelog for their version of the Galaxy Note 5 Android 6.0 update and has already begun pushing the software upgrade out to owners of the phablet.
That leaves behind Sprint, which has been mum so far on when it will offer the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update for its version of the Galaxy Note 5, and T-Mobile, which has confirmed the update is coming.
T-Mobile customers will have to wait a while, however, as the official T-Mobile software update page lists the upgrade process for the Note 5 as remaining in the manufacturer development phase. That's the first in the three-step process T-Mobile utilizes when preparing software upgrades for release. The T-Mobile Android 6.0 Marshmallow update still has to exit phase 1 and enter phase 2, which is T-Mobile's internal testing phase, prior to its official release to owners of the phablet on the network.
