Android 7.0 Nougat will soon land on Motorola devices, and the handset manufacturing company unveiled which of its phones will get the OS update.
Keep in mind that Google not only rolled out its Pixel and Pixel XL, but announced that Android 7.1 Nougat is in tow, as well. This means that select Motorola models, including many of its 2016 phones, will get the new Android version.
Quite a number of models will get the Android 7.0 Nougat. The fourth generation Moto G, Moto G Plus and Moto G Play, the third edition of Moto X Pure Edition, Moto X Force, Moto X Play, Moto X Style, Droid Maxx 2, Droid Turbo 2, Moto Z, Moto Z Play, Moto Z Droid and Moto Z Play Droid are all lining up to get the OS update. A special mention goes to Google Nexus 6, manufactured by Motorola, which is also on the list.
Looking at the smartphones queuing up, first on the list are the Moto Z and Moto G (fourth generation). According to Motorola's website, the two models will get the sweet OS from Google sometime during Q4 2016.
The crux of the matter is not that Motorola is rolling up an OS update to some devices, but that it is leaving out a number of recent gadgets.
Notable mentions are the Motorola Moto G (2015 variant) and the Motorola Moto E3 Power (2016). No smartphone from the Moto E series will get the update.
Motorola has made a staple out of providing a nearly unaltered, seamless Android experience since it released the first generation of Moto X in 2013, as one of the main pluses of this approach is that it allows OEMs to easily update the operating system.
However, manufacturers whose phones run on Android still have to integrate the new OS with their proprietary interface.
Google urged OEMs to keep their devices up-to-date with its monthly security patches, as well as the new OS versions. Motorola chooses to follow these rules now and then, and this might irk Moto E or Moto G (2015) users who simply don't have access to the improved Android experience.
No timeline for the updates was officially announced, but looking at how fast the update flux happened last year, it might be a while before the Android 7.0 Nougat reaches all the listed devices. The main reason for it lies with the fact that Lenovo has Motorola running on a skeleton crew compared to better days.
