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Android 6.0 "Marshmallow": The Green Robot Finally Gets Granular Control over Permissions

posted by martyb on Monday August 31 2015, @07:41AM   Printer-friendly
from the it's-about-time dept.

"gewg_" sent us news that Phone Arena reports:

A pretty nice addition to [the third developer preview of the OS formerly known as Android M] is granular control over the permissions [which] each and every app requires upon installing it, giving Android users "meaningful choice of control". Just like in iOS, apps in Android 6.0 Marshmallow will only [allow] you to grant them a certain permission immediately before the app needs it and not in bulk during the installation, [as was the case] in previous Android installments.

[...] Android 6.0 Marshmallow officially introduces API Level 23, which is one of the requirements to have app permissions that can be granted on demand. All Android apps need to be updated [by their developers] so that they support the brand new API0 Level 23 libraries in order to introduce the individual granular app permissions.

SiliconANGLE notes that 6.0 is also getting native fingerprint support, a new power-saving mode, and Android Pay.
They also note

Hardly anyone with an existing Android phone will ever get to use [6.0].

[...] Android-powered devices rely on the manufacturer to update the operating system and the reality is that it rarely happens.

To put it more crudely, the Android update process is f**ked.

[...] [As Android remains open source and free to use,] Google can't force manufacturers to come to the party in terms of upgrades [any] more than it can force manufacturers to stop skinning their Android installs with their own custom user interfaces and software.

Release of Android 6.0 is expected in 2015Q4.

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  • (Score: 0) by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:46AM

    by Anonymous Coward on Tuesday September 01 2015, @03:46AM (#230639)

    my note 2 has been repurposed to a "media player".
    i got a miniusb-2-HDMI dongle and installed kodi on it.

    it's decoding the 8 GB mkv blue navii featuring film just fine to my 1080p screen.
    It's got no more connection to the wider internet because rooting (OWNING!) your phone seems to turn the device
    from a sneaky-phone-home-spyrobot into a device that voids the warranty and thus isn't eligible to updates anymore...f#ckers!

    one wonders why samsung et al. don't just provide a image file like others that can be uploaded via usb to
    update (even a rooted/owned) devices for the not-so-wolly-sheep crowd?

    the gifted-to-me samsung tablet has the same problem. it's owned by me and thus gets no more updates and it has become a
    power-sipping bit-torrent client. at least it has half-way up-2-date kitkat ...