It’s the first Monday of May, and that means there are some new factory images and OTAs for the Nexus line. As usual, these new firmware packages are include the latest security patches from the preceding month, and possibly some bug fixes and optimizations, as well. While we’ll be looking for changes in the AOSP changelog (coming soon), Google has posted the security bulletin to explain the major risks that that have been fixed in this release.
Google took special care to note that point out that the security bulletin has been renamed (from “Nexus” to “Android”) to reflect its relationship to all devices running Android, not just those directly supported by Google. The criteria for evaluating severity levels have also been adjusted to more appropriately describe real world scenarios. Under the new definition, the latest security update addresses 6 critical, 12 high, 6 moderate, and 1 low-level issue.
There is no sign of an update for the Nexus 10, which may signal the official end of its support cycle. Google committed to officially support Nexus devices for 3 years from initial release, or 18 months after they are removed from the Play Store, whichever comes longer. The Nexus 10 was removed from the Play Store back in October 2014, which means last month’s update was probably the last officially released update we will see for the N10 and Lollipop.
We’ll have changelogs ready once AOSP is updated with the latest patches. Until then, hit the factory image page to download the updates for your devices, or kick back and wait for the OTAs to roll out over the next week or so. We’ll update this post when an AOSP changelog is ready for viewing.