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BlackBerry’s first-ever Android-powered smartphone, the BlackBerry Priv, was launched last year with Android 5.1.1 Lollipop on board. The CEO of BlackBerry, Mr. John Chen, hinted back in April that the company was working on updating the Priv to Android Marshmallow, and the unlocked BlackBerry Priv actually received Android Marshmallow through an OTA update later that month itself. While AT&T followed suit and rolled out the update in June, T-Mobile took the hint and updated the BlackBerry Privs on its network the very next month, leaving Priv owners on Verizon wondering how long the nation’s largest carrier will take to follow its rivals. Now, the time seems to have finally come for the BlackBery Priv on Verizon to receive its long overdue update.
According to a post of Verizon’s website, Android 6.0 Marshmallow has now finally started rolling out to the Verizon BlackBerry Priv (Software Version AAH376) after all these months. Marshmallow is expected to bring a number of interesting new features to the BlackBerry Priv on Verizon, including an all-new app permissions manager that allows for more granular app permissions, an all-new app drawer that allows vertical scrolling and an all-new battery-saving feature called ‘Doze’ that turns off network connections when the device is not in use. The update will also bring Google Now on Tap, Wi-Fi calling, and a bunch of new tweaks to the camera software of the device that will allow photography enthusiasts more manual controls in terms of shutter speed, ISO, EV compensation and white balance.
The BlackBerry is the first-ever Android smartphone from the Canadian tech company that was once the leader in the smartphones category globally. Since launching the Priv last year, BlackBerry has launched a couple of other Android-powered devices as well, but neither have been designed or developed by the company in-house. According to reports, the DTEK 50 and DTEK 60, have both been designed and manufactured by Chinese tech company, TCL. Either way, the Priv may not be the newest kid on the block, but it still remains a pretty solid device in its own right. Now that it has finally received Marshmallow, it will be interesting to see if BlackBerry and its partner carriers have any plans of rolling out Android Nougat for the device at some stage going forward.