latest
Read update
The release of the Galaxy S6 back in 2015 marked a change in direction for the company after lower than expected Galaxy S5 sales. The GS6 was the first Samsung phone that truly focused on design, but that was then and this is now. The Galaxy S6 is old news, so phones from that generation are losing update support. Samsung's way of telling you to buy a new phone?
It's very rare that Android phones receive more than two years of major software updates. Google has even stuck to that rule in the past, with the Pixel 2 being the company's first phone with three years of promised Android updates. According to T-Mobile support pages, Samsung could be planning an Oreo update for its 2015 flagships.
Read update
Android 7.0 Nougat has been out for a few months now, so we're getting to the point when older phones are seeing the update. T-Mobile project manager Des Smith reports that the Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge Plus is next up. This phone's Nougat update is on the way next week.
Trailing just behind AT&T and Sprint, Verizon is starting to roll out their Android 7.0 Nougat updates for the Samsung Galaxy Note5 and Galaxy S6 edge+. First pointed out by a tipster, information for each is now live on the Verizon site. Not just the usual bug fixes and security updates this time around, as this release finally brings Verizon devices up to speed with the 7.0 version of Android, promising “a fresh, simple user interface” and new customization options.
The Samsung Galaxy S8's public release is almost upon us, but Samsung hasn't completely forgotten about its older devices. The company began updating various Galaxy phones and tablets to Nougat earlier this year, and has been working to update all the various carrier models. The AT&T Galaxy Note 5 got its Nougat update earlier today, and now the carrier's S6 Edge+ has joined in.
Samsung promised that the S6, S6 edge, S6 edge+, and Note 5 would be getting Nougat in the first half of 2017 and it's starting to fulfill its end of the deal now. Galaxy Note 5 and S6 edge+ devices on Sprint are one of the first to benefit from an OTA update that takes their devices up to Android 7.0.
Well, this is a first. Of all the major OEMs that we cover on Android Police, few give us more headache when it comes to their Android updates than Samsung and LG. HTC, Sony, Motorola have been known to reveal which devices they plan to update to a newer version of Android and to give a timeline of that update, a practice they have followed over the past few years, but Samsung and LG? Radio silence. That frustrated us as reporters and you as users because you never knew if a phone you bought last year would get bumped to a new Android version or not. And you didn't have a timeline. But that has changed today.
AT&T and Samsung are both notoriously bad with Android updates, but they've done a good job with this latest update for the Galaxy Note5 and the Galaxy S6 edge+. Not only does this update bring the latest security update, but it also adds support for AT&T WiFi calling and Advanced Messaging.
Hot on the heels of a recent update to the Galaxy S7 and S7 edge, Verizon has released one for the Galaxy Note5 and S6 edge+. Like the S7/S7 edge update, this adds support for a barcode scanning app called Barcode Beaming Service. Unfortunately, Note5 and S6 edge+ owners will not receive the FM radio capability that S7 and S7 edge owners just did. Fixes for Verizon's Advanced Calling are included as well.
About nine months ago, Rootjunky managed to bypass the factory reset protection (FRP) on Samsung devices simply by inserting an OTG drive into the phone and installing an app. Then, two months later, he found a vulnerability on LG phones; this time, he circumvented FRP by using talkback settings to open a browser, downloading an APK that opened settings, adding a new user, switching back to the main account, and then resetting without FRP. However, this new exploit for Samsung phones might be the most ingenious yet.
Some of us like buying our phones brand new, but others don't mind the idea of refurbished. When it's done well, you can save several hundreds of bucks over a flagship device that's still top of its class and capable of handling everything you throw at it. If that sounds convincing to you and you're interested in Samsung's S6 Edge Plus and you're on T-Mobile, then you can't scoff at this eBay deal.
Software updates are like Christmas gifts for geeks like us. We rush to get them and we can't wait to unpack them, but we never know what we're really going to get. Sometimes it's everything we've been begging for in the past months, other times it's just a pair of socks for... I don't know mom, why did you think I needed socks?!
Minecraft isn't the first game you think about when you hear the word "immersion." No, it's the first one you think of when you hear "surprisingly popular," or "construction-based," or "Notch made more money than Solomon's divorce lawyer." But even so, it's been tied to the new virtual reality trend more than once, most notably thanks to new owner Microsoft's HoloLens platform. That said, a little platform competition isn't going to keep them from making ungodly amounts of money, so check out Minecraft for Samsung's Gear VR headsets.
Galaxy Note 5 owners on Verizon Wireless and Sprint received Android 6.0 last month. Weeks later, the time has come for T-Mobile customers to get the same experience. The carrier has started pushing over-the-air updates to devices.
It's update season at Verizon at the moment, with lots of phones on the network getting updates to Marshmallow. The latest is Samsung's Galaxy S6 Edge+, receiving a build which takes it from the Lollipop-based LMY47X to the all-new MMB29K. The update includes WiFi Calling, a feature which has been in Marshmallow updates for other Samsung devices on Verizon, improvements to the Edge panel, and Live Broadcast, and standard Marshmallow features such as on-demand permissions, Doze, and Now on Tap.
This is no April Fools joke: Verizon has updated the Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge software pages with details of the Marshmallow OTAs for the two devices. They currently run Lollipop, so the update will be very welcome to S6 owners on Verizon; Samsung started to roll out Marshmallow for the S6 and S6 Edge in February, so Verizon isn't that far behind. It does come almost a month after Sprint initiated the update for their S6 and S6 Edge, though.
Samsung has a bunch of phones spread across a bunch of carriers, and those released in the last year or two need Marshmallow updates. Sprint has begun to roll out the latest version of Android to customers owning three of those devices: the Galaxy Note 4 and 5, plus the S6 Edge+.
Samsung had an unexpected hit on its hands with the Edge display on the GS6 Edge and Edge+, but that was all because of how it looked; there was hardly any additional functionality tied to the curved screen. With the Android 6.0 update (and upcoming Galaxy S7 Edge, I'm sure), Samsung is adding some new features that make the Edge display more worthwhile.