Google has announced the name for the next version of its mobile operating system — Android Nougat, and is set to release it in the fall 2016.
As soon as Google officially releases Android Nougat, it’ll be available for all supported Nexus, Android One and Pixel C devices. But for Samsung (and other manufacturers) devices, it’ll take upto 3 months (at-least) for the official Android Nougat 7.0 build to release.
Android Nougat preview releases might help
Android Nougat preview releases have been available for quite a while now, and they are meant for two reasons. First, app developers could take advantage of the new features available on the newer version of Android and optimize their apps accordingly, Second, Android device manufacturers could optimize/integrate their customized software (like TouchWiz on Samsung) with the next release of Android, so that they could deliver updates on time.
However, time and again Samsung and others have failed to deliver timely Android updates to their devices. Although, international variants of their current flagships does get priority and (sometimes) get the latest Android update released within a couple of months.
Now coming to the fact that Google has already released 4 builds Android Nougat developer previews, so there might be a chance that the 4th release is the final preview release. So manufacturers have ample time to ready their skinned version of Android Nougat 7.0 update until fall (September or October) and release the update to (at-least) their flagship devices alongside Nexuses.
Samsung Android Nougat Release Date
All that said, we expect Samsung to release Android 7.0 Nougat update within 45-90 days of the official release by Google, which will calculate to December 2016 if Google releases Android Nougat by end of September.
However, if Google releases Android 7.0 early in September, Samsung Android Nougat update could come as early as November 2016.
Expected release date: Either November 2016 or December 2016.
Image credit: Phandroid