New Android 6.0 update is M, for Marshmallow

Android M for developers was announced at the Google I/O developer conference is now open to app developer who want to build apps for this new update.

Jamal Eason, who is Product Manager for Android wrote in a blog that “The Android emulator system images and developer preview system images have been updated for supported Nexus devices (Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 & Nexus Player) to help with your testing. You can download the device system images from the developer preview site. Also, similar to the previous developer update, supported Nexus devices will receive an Over-the-Air (OTA) update over the next couple days”.

He also added that, “Although the Android 6.0 SDK is final, the devices system images are still developer preview versions. The preview images are near final but they are not intended for consumer use. Remember that when Android 6.0 Marshmallow launches to the public later this fall, you’ll need to manually re-flash your device to a factory image to continue to receive consumer OTA updates for your Nexus device”

Google is giving the descriptions and general overview of its APIs here so if you’re a developer click that link. You can also set permissions to let the app only run on the Android M platform.

For all app developers building for Android 6.0, it is recommended that you use the improved beta testing feature so that you can roll out your app on the platform in stages before making it public.

What we worry about is there is not much time given for Android operating systems to run out their course. It may be hard for the OS maker to really know what areas to focus improvements on. So far the updates we get have minimal changes, the largest being seen in Android L (Lollipop) that came with a new user interface called Material design. We expect to see this design preserved in Android 6.0 M (Marshmallow) as well.

We expect Android M to rollout in October or November 2015.