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Google's monthly security updates are out in the form of factory images, and that means it's time for some new code in AOSP. Since these versions are dedicated to closing security holes, there certainly won't be any new features and the bug fixes probably won't have much effect on battery life or performance, but they will keep the baddies from treating your phone like it runs an old version of Windows.
The (presumably) final preview release of Android 6.0 Marshmallow made its grand entrance last week, followed by the usual code drop to the Android Open Source Project on Friday. The changelogs have been generated, and we've got them available for the close examination they deserve.
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It seems like the only thing anybody can talk about is Android M, but we should remember that we've got about 4 more months with Lollipop v5.1.1 as the current version until Mango Mojito (probably not) is officially released in October. This is no more apparent than when an update appears on AOSP and brings with it thousands of changes. In fact, this update is large enough it probably deserved more than a barely noticeable revision bump.
The Android M Developer Preview was released just yesterday and we're all very closely examining the changes. While there's still quite a bit to dig through, it looks like Google is getting some of the source code up right away. Before anybody gets too excited, it's likely that this code dump occurred to ensure GPL compliance. However, there are quite a few projects in the changelog that wouldn't normally require updates due to licensing, so there may be quite a bit more going live on this release.
Changelogs come in all shapes and sizes. Well, maybe there is just the one shape, but many different sizes. A new tag for 5.1.1_r3 turned up a few hours ago in AOSP and we've generated a list of changes the change for those who would like to know what's going on. As it turns out, this update sets a record for the smallest changelog ever, at just one lonely commit. On top of that, it's specifically for the Nexus 6 (Shamu).
The long-awaited update to 5.1.1 is finally available for the Nexus 9, bringing with it the many significant bug fixes everybody has been looking forward to. Surely, people are curious about what could possibly have delayed the update by so long, so we've generated a changelog of the commits to AOSP. Prepare to be underwhelmed, because it may be the shortest changelog we've ever seen.
I'm sure everybody can agree, it makes almost no sense that the Nexus 9 is only now receiving a tiny maintenance update to 5.0.2 a couple of months after 5.1 came out. Nevertheless, that's how events are playing out, so we should at least know what's so special about this update. We've generated a changelog from AOSP, and honestly, there's not much to see.
Some over-the-air updates just began their rollout to the Nexus 4 and 2013 Nexus 7 LTE, bringing their build versions up to LMY47O. If you're curious about what's actually different, we've generated a changelog with all of the gory details. That is to say, not much has changed. Sadly, the list of commits is limited to fixing a handful of relatively trivial and uncommon bugs.
In good Android tradition, every major version is followed by a series of build releases intended to quickly fix a small batches of issues. These updates usually come out to cure critical bugs, but sometimes they're just cleaning up a few relatively trivial mistakes. AOSP was just updated with a brand new version, tagged 5.1.0_r3. We've generated a changelog to show just what's different.
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With the code for Android 5.1 Lollipop now fully uploaded to the Android Open Source Project, it's time to hunt for new features and capabilities that we haven't already uncovered. With a total of 14,686 changes, there's a lot to look through in the latest changelog. A few very telling commit messages have already been discovered, but there are surely many more interesting messages waiting to be found.