Samsung Galaxy S6 and its brother Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge have started receiving the much awaited Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow update.
This news comes in after the South Korean company had been accused of rolling out delayed updates to the OS, despite the updates having been around for months now. Still, it’s better late than never. Even though Samsung has availed the update to last year’s flagship, this update will not reach all devices at the same time. Network carriers will play a hand in how long it will take for this update to reach your Galaxy S6 or Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone.
Pushing aside the time aspect, the big question here is what does the new Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow update bring to users of S6 or S6 Edge?
Here’s what the Marshmallow update brings
One reason why Android updates take “ages” to come to top flagships is that they have to be availed to OEMs first for them to add their own tweaks and updates. While Google has its own updates to the new OS, there are others added by Samsung itself.
From the side of Google, the new Android Marshmallow update brings quite a number of interesting features. The Doze and App Standby are two crucial additions to the OS, especially considering the battery life issues the two phones have. With Doze enabled, your phone will go to sleep mode when not in use, thus conserving battery power. With App Standby, apps you don’t use frequently will be stopped from running in the background, thus saving more power and data, for instance.
Other important updates the new Android OS brings to Samsung Galaxy S6 and S6 Edge include the Now on Tap feature, improved security as far as app permissions are concerned as well as fingerprint app sign-ins.
Even better news for Galaxy S6 Edge users
If you own a Samsung Galaxy S6 Edge smartphone, the news is even much better for you. It seems Samsung’s focus, this time, was on this device. While both devices have received some tweaks in their looks, the most notable changes took place on the S6 Edge phone.
Once you update to Android Marshmallow, you will notice more than double the amount of space that apps use on the edge display. The display now has 550 pixels from where apps can run. Samsung has also introduced a new torch app, a compass and ruler.
Rather than access only two customizable edge panels, users of the updated S6 Edge will now enjoy up to nine panels they can play around with.
Samsung has not rolled out the same updates for the larger Galaxy S6 Edge+ and Galaxy Note 5, but the updates should come in really soon.