Android Marshmallow ( codenamed Android M during development) is the sixth major version of the

Android operating system Android is a mobile operating system based on a modified version of the Linux kernel and other open-source software, designed primarily for touchscreen mobile devices such as smartphones and tablets. Android is developed by a consortium of deve ...

developed by

Google Google LLC () is an American multinational technology company focusing on search engine technology, online advertising, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, artificial intelligence, and consumer electronics. ...

, being the successor to

Android Lollipop Android Lollipop (code name, codenamed Android L during development) is the fifth major version of the Android (operating system), Android mobile operating system developed by Google and the 12th version of Android, spanning versions between 5.0 ...

. It was announced at

Google I/O Google I/O (or simply I/O) is an annual developer conference held by Google in Mountain View, California. "I/O" stands for Input/Output, as well as the slogan "Innovation in the Open". The event's format is similar to Google Developer Day. His ...

on May 28, 2015, and released the same day as a

beta Beta (, ; uppercase , lowercase , or cursive ; grc, βῆτα, bē̂ta or ell, βήτα, víta) is the second letter of the Greek alphabet. In the system of Greek numerals, it has a value of 2. In Modern Greek, it represents the voiced labiod ...

, before being officially released on September 29, 2015. It was succeeded by

Android Nougat Android Nougat ( codenamed Android N during development) is the seventh major version and 14th original version of the Android operating system. First released as an alpha test version on March 9, 2016, it was officially released on August 22, ...

on August 22, 2016. Android Marshmallow primarily focuses on improving the overall user experience of its predecessor. It introduced a new opt-in permissions architecture, new APIs for contextual assistants (first used by a new feature " Now on Tap" to provide context-sensitive search results), a new power management system that reduces background activity when a device is not being physically handled, native support for

fingerprint recognition A fingerprint is an impression left by the friction ridges of a human finger. The recovery of partial fingerprints from a crime scene is an important method of forensic science. Moisture and grease on a finger result in fingerprints on surfac ...

and

USB-C USB-C (properly known as USB Type-C) is a 24-pin USB connector system with a rotationally symmetrical connector. The designation C refers only to the connector's physical configuration or form factor and should not be confused with the conne ...

connectors, the ability to migrate data and applications to a

microSD Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

card, and other internal changes. Android Marshmallow was met by low adoption numbers, with 13.3% of Android devices running Marshmallow by July 2016. Usage of Marshmallow steadily increased since then, and by August 2017, 35.21% of Android devices ran Marshmallow, before receding. , 1.98% of Android devices run Marshmallow. Security updates for Marshmallow ended in October 2017.

History

Android Marshmallow internally codenamed "Macadamia Nut Cookie". The first developer preview build for Marshmallow, codenamed Android "M", was unveiled and released at

on May 28, 2015, for the

Nexus 5 Nexus 5 (code-named Hammerhead) is an Android smartphone sold by Google and manufactured by LG Electronics. It is the fifth generation of the Nexus series, succeeding the Nexus 4. It was unveiled on October 31, 2013 and served as the launc ...

and

Nexus 6 The Nexus 6 (codenamed Shamu) is a phablet co-developed by Google and Motorola Mobility that runs the Android operating system. The successor to the Nexus 5, it is the sixth smartphone in the Google Nexus series, a family of Android consumer ...

smartphone A smartphone is a portable computer device that combines mobile telephone and computing functions into one unit. They are distinguished from feature phones by their stronger hardware capabilities and extensive mobile operating systems, whic ...

s, the

Nexus 9 The Nexus 9 (codenamed Volantis or Flounder) is a tablet computer co-developed by Google and HTC that runs the Android operating system. It is the fourth tablet in the Google Nexus series, a family of Android consumer devices marketed by Google ...

tablet Tablet may refer to: Medicine * Tablet (pharmacy), a mixture of pharmacological substances pressed into a small cake or bar, colloquially called a "pill" Computing * Tablet computer, a mobile computer that is primarily operated by touching the s ...

, and the

Nexus Player The Nexus Player is a digital media player co-developed by Google, Intel and Asus. It is the second media player in the Google Nexus family of consumer devices. Originally running the Android 5.0 ("Lollipop") operating system, it is the first d ...

set-top box A set-top box (STB), also colloquially known as a cable box and historically television decoder, is an information appliance device that generally contains a TV-tuner input and displays output to a television set and an external source of sign ...

. The second developer preview was released on July 9, 2015, and the third and final preview was released on August 17, 2015, along with announcing that Android M would be titled Android "

Marshmallow Marshmallow (, ) is a type of confectionery that is typically made from sugar, water and gelatin whipped to a solid-but-soft consistency. It is used as a filling in baking or normally molded into shapes and coated with corn starch. The sugar c ...

". On September 29, 2015, Google unveiled launch devices for Marshmallow: the LG-produced

Nexus 5X The Nexus 5X (codenamed bullhead) is an Android smartphone manufactured by LG Electronics, co-developed with and marketed by Google as part of its Nexus line of flagship devices. Unveiled on September 29, 2015, it was a successor to the Nexus 5 ...

, the

Huawei Huawei Technologies Co., Ltd. ( ; ) is a Chinese multinational technology corporation headquartered in Shenzhen, Guangdong, China. It designs, develops, produces and sells telecommunications equipment, consumer electronics and various smar ...

-produced

Nexus 6P Nexus 6P (codenamed ''Angler'') (also known as the Nexus 6 Plus, Nexus 6 Pro or Nexus 6 Premium) is an Android smartphone developed and marketed by Google and manufactured by Huawei. It succeeded the Nexus 6 as the flagship device of the Nexus ...

, alongside Google's own

Pixel C The Pixel C is a 10.2-inch (260 mm) Android tablet developed and marketed by Google. The device was unveiled during a media event on September 29, 2015. On October 9, 2018, it was succeeded by the Pixel Slate. Specifications Hardware ...

tablet. Android 6.0 updates and factory images for

, 6, 7 (2013), 9, and

Player Player may refer to: Role or adjective * Player (game), a participant in a game or sport ** Gamer, a player in video and tabletop games ** Athlete, a player in sports ** Player character, a character in a video game or role playing game who is ...

were released on October 5, 2015. Older Nexus devices, including the

Nexus 4 The Nexus 4 (codenamed Mako) is an Android (operating system), Android smartphone co-developed by Google and LG Electronics. It is the fourth smartphone in the Google Nexus product family, unveiled on October 29, 2012, and released on November ...

Nexus 7 (2012) The first-generation Nexus 7 is a mini tablet computer co-developed by Google and Asus that runs the Android operating system. It is the first tablet in the Google Nexus series of Android consumer devices marketed by Google and built by an ...

and

Nexus 10 The Nexus 10 is a tablet computer co-developed by Google and Samsung Electronics that runs the Android operating system. It is the second tablet in the Google Nexus series, a family of Android consumer devices marketed by Google and built by an O ...

, did not receive an official update. On October 14, 2015, LG announced that it planned to release Marshmallow for its flagship

LG G4 The LG G4 is an Android smartphone developed by LG Electronics as part of the LG G series. Unveiled on 28 April 2015 and first released in South Korea on 29 April 2015 and widely released in June 2015, as the successor to 2014's G3. The G4 is pri ...

smartphone in Poland the following week, marking the first third-party device to receive an update to Marshmallow. Android 6.0.1, a software

patch Patch or Patches may refer to: Arts, entertainment and media * Patch Johnson, a fictional character from ''Days of Our Lives'' * Patch (''My Little Pony''), a toy * "Patches" (Dickey Lee song), 1962 * "Patches" (Chairmen of the Board song) ...

featuring security fixes, support for

Unicode 8.0 Unicode, formally The Unicode Standard,The formal version reference is is an information technology standard for the consistent encoding, representation, and handling of text expressed in most of the world's writing systems. The standard, whic ...

emoji An emoji ( ; plural emoji or emojis) is a pictogram, logogram, ideogram or smiley embedded in text and used in electronic messages and web pages. The primary function of emoji is to fill in emotional cues otherwise missing from typed conversat ...

(although without supporting skin tone extensions for human emoji), and the return of the "until next alarm" feature in Do Not Disturb mode, was released on December 7, 2015.

System features

User experience

A new "Assist"

API An application programming interface (API) is a way for two or more computer programs to communicate with each other. It is a type of software Interface (computing), interface, offering a service to other pieces of software. A document or standa ...

allows information from a currently opened app, including text and a screenshot of the current screen, to be sent to a designated " assistant" application for analysis and processing. This system is used by the Google Search app feature "

Google Now on Tap Google Now was a feature of Google Search of the Google app for Android and iOS. Google Now proactively delivered information to users to predict (based on search habits and other factors) information they may need in the form of informational c ...

", which allows users to perform searches within the context of information currently being displayed on-screen. While the "Home" button was used in Android 5 to show available apps, the "Home" button is used now (together with a voice command) to generate on-screen cards which display information, suggestions, and actions related to the content. "Direct Share" allows Share menus to display recently used combinations of contacts and an associated app as direct targets.

Adoptable storage

The new "Adoptable storage" feature allows a newly-inserted

SD card Secure Digital, officially abbreviated as SD, is a proprietary non-volatile flash memory card format developed by the SD Association (SDA) for use in portable devices. The standard was introduced in August 1999 by joint efforts between SanDis ...

to be optionally designated as "internal" rather than "portable" storage. "Portable" storage is the default behavior used in previous Android versions, treating the media as a secondary storage device for storage of user files, and the storage media can be removed or replaced without repercussions, but user-installed apps are restricted to writing to their respective package name directories located inside Android/data. This restriction was introduced in

Android 4.4 KitKat Android Kit Kat, KitKat is the codename for the eleventh Android (operating system), Android mobile operating system, representing release version 4.4. Unveiled on September 3, 2013, KitKat focused primarily on optimizing the operating system for ...

. The

Storage Access Framework Android 10 ( codenamed Android Q during development) is the tenth major release and the 17th version of the Android mobile operating system. It was first released as a developer preview on March 13, 2019, and was released publicly on Septembe ...

, through which shared writing access to memory cards has been reinstated in

Android 5.0 Lollipop Android Lollipop ( codenamed Android L during development) is the fifth major version of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google and the 12th version of Android, spanning versions between 5.0 and 5.1.1. Unveiled on June 25, 2014 ...

, is backwards-incompatible and slower due to latencies. When designated as "Internal" storage, the storage media is reformatted with an encrypted

ext4 ext4 (fourth extended filesystem) is a journaling file system for Linux, developed as the successor to ext3. ext4 was initially a series of backward-compatible extensions to ext3, many of them originally developed by Cluster File Systems for ...

file system, and is "adopted" by the operating system as an extension of the primary storage partition. Existing data (including applications and "private" data folders) are migrated to the external storage, and normal operation of the device becomes dependent on the presence of the media. Apps and operating system functions will not function properly if the adopted storage device is removed, and the card can not be reused in other devices until

reformat Disk formatting is the process of preparing a data storage device such as a hard disk drive, solid-state drive, floppy disk, memory card or USB flash drive for initial use. In some cases, the formatting operation may also create one or more new fil ...

ted. If the user loses access to the storage media, the adopted storage can be "forgotten", which makes the data permanently inaccessible.

Samsung The Samsung Group (or simply Samsung) ( ko, 삼성 ) is a South Korean multinational manufacturing conglomerate headquartered in Samsung Town, Seoul, South Korea. It comprises numerous affiliated businesses, most of them united under the ...

and LG have, however, removed the ability to use an SD card as "internal" storage on their

Galaxy S7 The Samsung Galaxy S7, Samsung Galaxy S7 Edge and Samsung Galaxy S7 Active are Android-based smartphones manufactured, released and marketed by Samsung Electronics. The S7 series serves as the successor to the Galaxy S6, S6 Edge, S6 Edge+ and ...

and G5 devices, with Samsung arguing that the feature could result in unexpected losses of data, and prevents users from being able to transfer data using the card.

Platform

Android Marshmallow introduces a redesigned application permissions model; apps are no longer automatically granted all of their specified permissions at installation time. An opt-in system is now used, in which users are prompted to grant or deny individual permissions (such as the ability to access the camera or microphone) to an application when they are needed for the first time. Applications remember the grants, which can be revoked by the user at any time. The new permissions model is used only by applications developed for Marshmallow using its

software development kit A software development kit (SDK) is a collection of software development tools in one installable package. They facilitate the creation of applications by having a compiler, debugger and sometimes a software framework. They are normally specific to ...

(SDK), and older apps will continue to use the previous all-or-nothing approach. Permissions can still be revoked for those apps, though this might prevent them from working properly, and a warning is displayed to that effect. Marshmallow introduces new

power management Power management is a feature of some electrical appliances, especially copiers, computers, computer CPUs, computer GPUs and computer peripherals such as monitors and printers, that turns off the power or switches the system to a low-power stat ...

schemes known as "Doze" and "App Standby"; when running on battery power, a device will enter a low-power state if it is inactive and not being physically handled. In this state, network connectivity and background processing are restricted, and only "high-priority" notifications are processed. Additionally, network access by apps is deferred if the user has not recently interacted with the app. Apps may request a permission to exempt themselves from these policies, but will be rejected from Google Play Store as a violation of its "Dangerous Products" policy if their core functionality is not "adversely affected" by them. Android Marshmallow provides native support for

on supported devices via a standard

, allowing third-party applications to implement fingerprint-based authentication. Fingerprints can be used for unlocking devices and authenticating

Play Store Google Play, also known as the Google Play Store and formerly the Android Market, is a digital distribution service operated and developed by Google. It serves as the official app store for certified devices running on the Android operating syst ...

and

Google Pay Google Pay may refer to: * Google Pay (mobile app), a mobile payments app introduced in 2020 * Google Pay (2018–2022), a digital wallet app introduced in 2018, now Google Wallet * Google Pay (payment method), a digital payments service introduced ...

purchases. Android Marshmallow supports

, including the ability to instruct devices to charge another device over USB. Marshmallow also introduces "verified links" that can be configured to open directly in their specified application without further user prompts. User data for apps targeting Marshmallow can be automatically backed up to

Google Drive Google Drive is a file storage and synchronization service developed by Google. Launched on April 24, 2012, Google Drive allows users to store files in the cloud (on Google's servers), synchronize files across devices, and share files. In addi ...

over Wi-Fi. Each application receives up to 25 MB of storage, which is separate from a user's Google Drive storage allotment. As of Marshmallow, the Android Compatibility Definition Document contains new security mandates for devices, dictating that those that are capable of accessing encrypted data without affecting performance must enable secure boot and device encryption by default. These conditions comprise part of a specification that must be met in order to be certified for the operating system, and be able to license

Google Mobile Services Google Mobile Services (GMS) is a collection of proprietary applications and application programming interfaces (APIs) services from Google that are typically pre-installed on Android devices, such as smartphones, tablets, and smart TVs. GMS ...

software. The requirement for mandatory device encryption was originally intended to take effect on Lollipop, but was delayed due to performance issues.

References

External links

* *

Android Marshmallow Based Smartphones

Samsung Galaxy Note 5 The Samsung Galaxy Note 5 (stylized as SΛMSUNG Galaxy Note5) is an Android-based phablet designed, developed, produced and marketed by Samsung Electronics. Unveiled on 13 August 2015, it is the successor to the Galaxy Note 4 and part of the Sam ...

And

Huawei Mate 8 The Huawei Mate 8 is a high-end Android smartphone produced by Huawei as a part of the Huawei Mate series. It was released on 26 November 2015 in China China, officially the People's Republic of China (PRC), is a country in East Asia. ...

And

Huawei P9 The Huawei P9 is a Chinese high-end Android smartphone produced by Huawei, released in 2016. It is the successor to the Huawei P8 and maintains almost the same design but has a dual camera setup in the back co-engineered with Leica along with a ...

LG V10 The LG V10 is an Android smartphone manufactured by LG Electronics as part of the LG V series. Announced in September 2015 and released in October 2015, the device shares many similarities with the earlier LG G4. Its main feature is a customizab ...

And

LG G5 The LG G5 is an Android smartphone developed by LG Electronics as part of the LG G series. It was announced during Mobile World Congress as the successor to the 2015 LG G4. The G5 is distinguished from its predecessors by its aluminum chassis and ...

{, class="wikitable" , + !About !Year !Version !Month !Release , - , Nexus 6P , 2015 , Android 6.0 Marshmallow , August 2015 , Jul 20, 2015 , - , Nexus 5X , 2016 , Android N Developer Preview , March 2016 , Feb 20, 2016 2015 software Android (operating system)