HTC has officially kicked off the release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow update over-the-air (OTA) to One M9 units in Canada. This prompts reports that versions in the United Stated might follow through as soon as this week.
HTC One M9 smartphones under Canadian mobile carriers, Sakstel, Rogers, Wind and Videotron, have finally received the Android 6.0 Marshmallow update earlier today. HTC already announced on Twitter yesterday about the said roll out.
Mo Versi, HTC senior vice president for product management, announced the great news on the macro-blogging site. In his words, the tweet said: "Great news for our Sasktel, Rogers, Wind and Videotron HTC One M9 owners! We'll go live on Monday for the Marshmallow OS update. Thank you!"
Android 6.0 Marshmallow brings in two major improvements in Android Run Time (ART) and flex storage.
The Android Run Time gets prominent improvements since its debut in Android 4.4 KitKat, when it was still an optional feature. With Lollipop, the Android RT revolved with a Default setting instead of Dalvik cache to advance performance and help manage RAM usage. With Marshmallow, the feature will improve the performance of the device and also helps control battery consumption. In the first maintenance release of Marshmallow, the feature is expected to bring more improvements.
Flex storage is a combined storage feature for internal and external space, which makes it applicable only to devices with micro SD slot. With Marshmallow, it can format external memory card and pool to internal storage so that users can utilize to install apps and app data. However, slower memory card may trigger a low speed warning.
One M9 will also receive features like Google Now on Tap, fingerprint support, USB Type-C support, more secured Android Pay, power-saving Doze Mode, app standby, new app drawer, simpler volume controls, and security fixes. If update comes with the latest versions, these devices shall receive the new and update set of emojis.
