Google has officially released its next iteration of its popular mobile operating system – Android 7.0 Nougat. However, it is currently available only for the Nexus 6, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus 9, Nexus Player, Pixel C, and the General Mobile 4G Android One phone. Sorry Nexus 5 users, Google has decided to drop support for the device starting Android 7.0 Nougat update.
Even for those who own these devices, the update has not been rolled out to all users at once. Google has said that all supported devices should get the over-the-air (OTA) update in the coming weeks, with no clear indication of the timeline. If you haven’t received the update yet, and are tired of refreshing the ‘software update’ page in your settings app every now and then, we might have a solution for you.
There is another easy method that you can use to force install Android 7.0 Nougat on supported devices as reported by Techradar. But before that, there are some steps to follow to ensure your device doesn’t get bricked or you don’t lose all your data.
Ensure that your phone is backed up
Before you download and install the Android Nougat update, it is important that you back up your supported device. We recommend doing this despite the fact that the Nougat update is a stable release primarily because there is a high possibility that something could go wrong during the update process. Therefore, it is vital that you have a back up so that you can restore your phone to a previous version of Android in case the forced update failed.
To backup your phone/tablet, go to Settings’ > ‘Backup & reset’ and ensure that ‘Backup my data’ and ‘Automatic restore’ are checked. To back up your photos you can use the Google Photos app (download it if your phone/tablet doesn’t have it) to back them up to the cloud. Open the Google Photos app, go to settings and hit ‘Back up and sync’ option, which will provide you with a slew of personalized options to choose from. Doing this also helps you save precious storage space on your device. You can also connect your device to a Windows or Mac machine to back up your photos on that device.
Using the Android Beta Program
This is the easier of the two methods. All you need to do is to opt for the Android Beta program to install the stable version of Android 7.0 Nougat. Google has actually extended the program to exist beyond the initial release of Android 7.0 Nougat. This means that it is still not too late to enroll for the program. It is a fairly easy process to opt-in to the Android Beta program.
- Open the Android Beta program portal on your supported Nexus phone or the Pixel C tablet.
- Use the same Google account that is used to sign-in to your supported device.
- Scroll down to choose the eligible device.
- Find the device you wish to enroll in the Beta program and then tap ‘Enrol Device’.
- Follow the prompts to download the OTA Android 7.0 Nougat update.
- Viola! You now have Android 7.0 Nougat on your device.
Note that you can also leave the Beta program if you wish. You merely have to press a button on the Beta program portal to do so.
For those who are more adventurous, there is another, more difficult method to install Android 7.0 Nougat on your phone/tablet. For this, you will need to know about flashing a factory image of the Android 7.0 Nougat on top of your Nexus phone. Additionally, it needs for you to have adb and fastboot installed on your computer, which you can find from the Android Studio portal. Head over to Android Central’sdetailed explanation of how you can go about installing Android 7.0 Nougat using this method.
Whichever method you try, do let us know in the comments section below if it worked for you.
[Photo by Justin Sullivan/Getty Images]