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For those of us that love Android, yesterday a pretty rock solid day.  Android Nougat was released and devices that were a part of the beta program have already started seeing the final NRD90M build hit their devices (you can read my review to get all the details on Nougat).  One tidbit of news in all of the hubbub of the release was the announcement of regular maintenance releases for Nougat.  It was easy to miss as, as far as I am aware, it was only posted in the Android Developer Blog announcing the release.  That blog, unless you are developer, isn’t on everyone’s reading list understandably.  In that post from Dave Burke, he pointed out a small but important piece of information about Nougat.

We’re moving Nougat into a new regular maintenance schedule over the coming quarters. In fact, we’ve already started work on the first Nougat maintenance release, that will bring continued refinements and polish, and we’re planning to bring that to you this fall as a developer preview. Stay tuned!

This new maintenance schedule is independent of the monthly security updates.  This new maintenance schedule is all about bringing features, refinements and fixes to the platform.  It is also, in my opinion, a shot across the bow of manufactures who drag their feet in getting the .0 releases out.  Android is going to march forward and Google, more or less, is telling OEMs to get with the program.

Microsoft and Lenovo have entered into an agreement which will see the Redmond company’s apps appear on the Beijing based company’s future Android phones.  The announcement by the companies will bring Microsoft Office apps, OneDrive and Skype to select Lenovo devices going forward.  Which specific devices is not laid out in the press release.

“Microsoft’s thrilled that our productivity apps will be pre-installed on Lenovo’s premium devices,” said Nick Parker, corporate vice president OEM Division, Microsoft. “The marriage of Microsoft’s apps and Lenovo’s Android-based devices will enable customers around the world to be more productive, more connected and achieve even more.”

For Lenovo, they are gaining access to some of Microsoft’s patents and IP (Intellectual Property) to be cross-licensed in Motorola and Lenovo devices.

Android Nougat represents the 7th major version of Android, Google’s mobile Operating System. While terms like evolution are appropriate for this release, I think a different word is more appropriate.

Refinement.

While there are some new features that make Nougat a worthy update, by-and-large it is safe to say that this version of Android is refining many of the features that made their appearance in Marshmallow. That, in my opinion, is a very good thing.  Improvements in this release of Android come in various forms from UI updates to under-the-hood changes that make it perhaps the most refined version of the Operating System to date.  My point is, if you are looking for massive changes between Marshmallow and Nougat, you may be disappointed.  There are changes, to be sure, but not polar-shifting, orbit altering changes.  More subtle changes… or refinements.

Here is my review.

After five months in beta and 5 Developer Previews, Android Nougat has been released with factory images available right now and OTAs beginning soon.  Nougat represents version 7.0 of Android OS and is more of a refinement of what we find in Marshmallow than revolutionary.  Still, having used Nougat on my Nexus 6P for the past several months, it has some very nice improvements and updates.  The official announcement came on the Google for Work blog while the Official Android Blog page for the announcement went live a bit later.

Google has not released the Factory Images of Nougat at this point but I suspect those are just a few minutes or an hour away.  Once they are available, for those of you who want it absolutely right now, you can manually flash your device.  For those who want to wait, the OTAs should be beginning in short order, likely by the end of this week.  For those of you in the Beta program, you should start seeing the OTA update to the final build today.