Google hasn't completely forgotten about its previous flagships yet, the opposite of which many believed to be true with the onset of its self-branded flagship pair, the Pixel and the Pixel XL. In fact, the Nexus 6, released in 2014, is slated to receive an Android 7.1.1 Nougat update come January next year.
Google Nexus 6 Nougat Update
Google announced early December some of its previous devices would get Android 7.1.1, including the Nexus 6 "over the next several weeks," but Nexus 6 owners haven't received the update nearly a month later.
The software update's delay, Google says, was due to a "last-minute bug" specific to the Nexus 6. Google hasn't specified what kind of bug it dealt with, but the company has confirmed that the issue has been straightened out, and the update will arrive very soon over-the-air, according to a report.
"Unfortunately, we found a last minute bug that was specific to the Nexus 6, which has caused the delay of the 7.1.1 OTA rollout. We've since fixed the issue and will be rolling out an update in early January," Google told Android Police.
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. Still, the Nexus 6 is still one of the few smartphones running Nougat, and the latest version at that. For some perspective, the Nexus 5 was denied Nougat altogether, which likely spells the same fate for Nexus 6 once the next major Android version rolls around.
Google didn't offer a specific date in January for the release, but expect due coverage when that occurs.
Nexus 6
The Nexus 6 precedes the Nexus 5X and the 6P, which in turn precede the Pixel and the Pixel XL, Google's self-branded top-of-the-lines. The Nexus 6 rocks a 5.96-inch screen with a Quad HD resolution, armed with Corning Gorilla Glass 3 protection.
Under the hood is a Qualcomm Snapdragon 805 chip, an Adreno 420 GPU, and 3 GB of RAM. It runs Android 5.0 Lollipop out of the box, and comes with either 32 or 64 GB of internal storage. On the back is a 13-megapixel shooter that can record 4K video at 30 fps, and on the front is a 2-megapixel camera.
Android 7.1.1 hosts a number of features and improvements, which includes a night light feature, which is still unconfirmed for the Nexus 6; touch input and the display performance improvements; support for Daydream, Google's VR platform; and quite a number of developer-specific features.
For those who own a Nexus 6: are you excited for the software update coming January? Feel free to sound off in the comments section below!
