Back at its I/O conference in June, Google unveiled the next version of Android. At that time it was given a placeholder moniker of Android M. Many have since been guessing what the M stands for and today Google has officially confirmed what the next major update is called. Android M is called Marshmallow and it bumps up the version number to 6.0.
After having revealed the final moniker of Android M Google also released a new developer preview of the software as well as the final version of Android 6.0 SDK.
The company points out in its blog post that the new preview images are “near final” but they’re not intended for public use just yet, users will have to manually re-flash their devices when Android 6.0 Marshmallow arrives for the public this fall if they have been using the preview builds.
Android Marshmallow brings several new features for Google’s mobile platform including but not limited to Android Pay, support for USB Type-C ports, improved app permissions as well as various system-wide tweaks and improvements.
Google has not yet said precisely when Android 6.0 Marshmallow will be released to the public though it’s quite likely that the new software will arrive once Google’s two new Nexus smartphones have been unveiled.
Filed in . Read more about Android 6.0 Marshmallow, Android M and Google.