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Android Operating Systems Google Open Source Software Technology Build

Google Is Rolling Out Android 7.1.1 (engadget.com) 75

Posted by BeauHD from the come-and-get-it dept.
Google is rolling out Android 7.1.1 for Pixel and Nexus smartphones, including the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Pixel, Pixel XL, Nexus Player, Pixel C and General Mobile 4G (Android One). You can download it over-the-air when it becomes available "over the next several weeks" or flash it yourself. Engadget details some of the new features found in Android 7.1.1: As for what you can find from a feature perspective, Google has added support for its "image keyboard" that lets you easily find and send pictures and GIFs without leaving your messaging app of choice. Google says it'll work inside of Hangouts, Allo, and the default Messaging app. Ironically enough, the feature has been available in the Gboard iOS keyboard that Google launched in the spring, but it's good to see it coming to more Android phones now. Android 7.1.1 also includes Google's latest set of more diverse emoji, specifically focused on showing a "wider range of professions" for women. And it also contains the excellent app shortcut feature that originally launched on the Pixel -- if you press and hold on an app's icon, a sub-menu of shortcuts will show up. You'll be able to quickly send a message to a specific contact or navigate to a saved location using these shortcuts, for example. They're very much like the "force touch" shortcuts found on the iPhone, but that doesn't make them any less useful.
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Google Is Rolling Out Android 7.1.1 More

Google Is Rolling Out Android 7.1.1

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  • Awesome! (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Can't wait to upgrade to it in 1.5 years! I'll go mark my calendar now....

  • And here I am (Score:5)

    by ArchieBunker ( 132337 ) on Monday December 05, 2016 @06:55PM (#53428869)

    Still running a phone with 4.4.

  • Android gets patched more frequently than (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    a plaster wall in an earthquake zone

    thanks, but no thanks

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by cdrudge ( 68377 )

      Exactly. Who wants an OS that has bug fixes and security holes fixed. Long live v1.6 Donut!

  • A Soothing Green (Score:1)

    by Anonymous Coward

    Your prison walls have now been painted in more calming colors. Enjoy!

    And remember! It may seem like magic, but it's really just the arbitrary and capricious obfuscation inherent in a proprietary system!

  • I don't care. My previous phone, a Huawei Mate2, was "stuck on" jellybean 4.3 for over a year before they pushed out (skipping KK) to 5.1 Oh there were betas, cooked roms and what not, but I stuck with 4.3, because my phone worked perfectly. No problems. In fact, I probably would have left it on 4.3, had Huawei not had an easy way to push it back to 4.3, from 5.1. 5.1 was very stable. My new phone (about 3 months ago) a Huawei Mate8, came with 6.0MM. Huawei says 7.0N will come to it around the 1st Qtr of

  • Great! (Score:2, Interesting)

    by Anonymous Coward

    I bet people will enjoy it when it finally makes its way into the hands of the public in several years' time. Right now, only 0.4% of Android users are on Android 7 [android.com]. For comparison, 1.2% of Android users are still on Android 2.3, released exactly 6 years ago today, and 24% of Android users are still on Android 4.4, released over three years ago.

    • Re: (Score:1)

      by dalan ( 462305 )

      That's why you use a Google phone, such as Nexus or the new Prism! Who wants Samsung fucking with their OS?

      • Re: Great! (Score:1)

        by Anonymous Coward

        Even Nexus phones are only guaranteed to get updates for a measly 2 years. Meanwhile iPhones get them for 4-5 years.

        • I have a nexus model and it's stuck on 5.x

          Used Nexus 6 phones can be had on ebay for $AU206 but if it costs me two hundred bucks just to get the lastest OS on a soon to be unsupported phone then they really aren't that much better than the competition.

          (Yes, I'm cheap.)

        • Not just version updates but the monthly security fixes.

  • Excellent (Score:3)

    by Gumbercules!! ( 1158841 ) on Monday December 05, 2016 @08:49PM (#53429515)
    I look forward to never seeing it released for my phone. AND I HAVE A NEXUS 6P.

    Because despite the misleading article saying Google is releasing it for Nexus phones, the carrier still needs to test and release it (unless you want to download and manually install a ROM and completely wipe your phone) - and my carrier still has not released 7.0 for fucks sake. And for the record, I did manually install 7.1 through the Beta program on it - and promptly lost access to LTE on my carrier.

    • Carrier definitely makes a difference...let us know which you are on.

      For an opposing experience my Nexus 6p on Google's 'Fi' network is on 7.1.1 and even in the beta program has been rock solid.

      My only complaint isn't really isn't taking full advantage of the multiple networks and i've switched it manually and gotten signal when it was still fruitlessly trying to reconnect to the network with no signal in the train tunnels.

      • Telstra (Australia). My Nexus 6P experience has been dreadful. Telstra say the phone is not supported on their network so it's my fault for buying one (Telstra are the largest carrier in Australia and, essentially, the only one with reasonable rural coverage - I travel rural for work a few times a year so it's Telstra or carrier pigeons). I've been pretty annoyed at how badly the phone has worked at that level but part of me is willing to accept that Telstra just couldn't care about what is essentially a ni

        • TL;DR : Telstra (Australia).

          Nothing more needed saying. Good for coverage and nothing else. They also seem to be the only carrier that puts effort into screwing business customers as equally as consumers.To be fair to Google though, the model is similar. The difference is that ISPs actually put effort into ensuring things work first go on the iPhone.

          • They put extra effort into screwing businesses. We switched all our business phones at work to personal plans because you get MORE data for LESS money, simply by changing it from business to personal. It's insane.

            • Someone has to pay for useless 24/7 support. As opposed to useless 9-5 support.

              Seriously though I remember calling them up because our $3000/m leased lines died. They blamed our equipment. Even though it was 6 different modems in 3 different locations, about 3km apart. Eventually they went out to their cabinet to have a look. As it turns out their exchange building was under water. At least we managed to sue them for damages due to the way the contract was written, but really when an engineer calls your bus

    • Google has commitments from all the major carriers to fix this exact issue in the next few months -- and there is major work going on in the underlying layers of Android to enable Google to push out updates without having to loop in carriers (presumably with the exception of updates to the baseband radio firmware, which has to be tested on the networks and approved by the carriers).
  • Android fragmentation. I'm thinking my next phone will be an iPhone.

  • I'm still on 6.0.1 on my Google Fi Nexus 6. I've been getting the monthly security updates, but have seen neither hide nor hair of 7.anything for my phone. Keep in mind the Nexus 6 was supposed to get 7.0 in October, and it's now December...

    • My nexus 6 has the update available. I think you must have hosed some settings.

      • Re: (Score:2)

        by emag ( 4640 )

        I suppose it's *possible*, but since it's neither rooted nor unlocked, it seems pretty unlikely. The only "unusual" thing I did was enable the device encryption. May as well see if I can enroll in the beta program to get the update pushed.

        Though what I really wish was my N7 2013 LTE tablet would get updates, still.

  • Waiting for Samsung to provide v7 on its Galaxy S6 edge. :P

    • Re: (Score:2)

      by Zocalo ( 252965 )
      Yeah, I'm waiting on Samsung too. Supposedly it's coming late this year or early next year, but if you didn't want to wait and were on the ball and in the right country you could have signed up for one of the limited number of slots on the Galaxy Beta Program a few months back. Apparently that pushed out a Beta 3 release [techtimes.com] a week or so ago which focusses on bug fixes and enhancements, so other than a couple of outstanding bugs mentioned in the link we're not too far from release.

  • So unfortunately, I have no fucks to give.

  • Would there be any way to make Google itself update the Android installed on a smartphone without the need of support from the smartphone manufacturer? Maybe put an intermediate layer between the hardware and the operating system to deal with the drivers specific to each model? Or change the Android kernel so that it somehow identifies the available hardware and then downloads or compiles the necessary drivers? Because depending on the manufacturer of the equipment has became clearly wrong since the manufac

  • Oh this is just great. Just keep adding useless stuff, but then don't do anything of value and remove useful features. Android has been going downhill since Android 4, as it is now Android as an app platform is useless since more and more features have been removed.

  • Who cares about emojis? 7.1 has major glitches that needed to be addressed.

  • It's not like the Android "community" is going to use it. You see, cellphones aren't getting better, so we hold on to our phones. Our carriers and cellphone makers won't update our phones. If we update our phones it breaks the warranty.

    Cellphones are just supposed to be disposable crap we purchase in infatuation, and throw in the trash when we discover there's no racing stripe on our model.

    Cellphone usability sucks. Every tried to get stuff done on a cellphone. It has all the power of the 2000 computer, wit

  • "Google Is Rolling Out Android 7.1.1"

    Free with a large Slurpee

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