The Priv, BlackBerry’s first real stab at an Android-based phone, was updated to Android 6.0 Marshmallow way back in April, but it’s only now that Verizon is rolling out the update to its customers.
The original update was already a little overdue — in fact, the Priv launched a month after Android 6.0 Marshmallow was released. It took six months for customers to get a taste of Marshmallow on their BlackBerries, but only if they had GSM unlocked phones. T-Mobile and AT&T customers got the update in June and July, respectively. And now, four months later, Verizon has finally joined the party.
Unfortunately, the Priv is one of not-too-many devices running Android 6.0. As of April 4, only 4.6 percent of Android devices were equipped with Marshmallow, highlighting how fragmented the Android ecosystem really is.
Six months is quite a long time to push out an update, especially considering the fact that the Priv is BlackBerry’s only Android phone. HTC and Samsung flagships got an update for Marshmallow back in January or February, and some of LG’s phones got the update as far back as October.
Of course, that doesn’t mean BlackBerry hasn’t been doing anything — the company has been doing great on Google’s security update program, which involves updating devices on a monthly basis to patch any security issues that might exist in the software. This is despite the fact that the Priv is running an older version of Android.
Marshmallow brings a number of great features to the Priv, including user-controllable permissions, something that was ironically not present in the original Priv considering the fact that ‘Priv’ stands for privacy.
The update itself certainly took its sweet time being rolled out, and this may be one area in which T-Mobile reigned supreme over its competitors.
Article originally published in April. Updated on 11-07-2016 by Lulu Chang: Added news that Verizon has finally rolled out Marshmallow update.
