Ever since Google introduced the developer preview of their Android operating system at last year’s Google IO developer conference, it has been a welcomed addition to Android for the eager users and the development community who wished to get their hands on early stages of the software which would later be pushed out for users in a final build. This began with Android L which has now become Android Lollipop and is continuing to make its way across devices, and this year Google introduced Android M, the new software version which is likely to be released sometime later this Fall.
While the Developer Preview has been a great tool and an awesome opportunity for users and developers alike to get their hands on unreleased software to test things out and see a few new features, it is limited to a handful of devices which Google sets out, leaving many other users out of the mix and with no chance to try out the new software. This is the case with both Android L and this year’s Android M, having generally been restricted to current Nexus devices like the Nexus 9, Nexus 6, and Nexus 5, and recently it’s been opened up for a select number of Xperia devices. A developer with a little bit of passion and dedication though has managed to get a port of the Android M developer preview up and running on the original Nexus 7 from 2012, something which many people likely will find unexpected since Google never intended for the software to be tested on this device.
This means those who still own and use the 2012 Nexus 7 are able to give this port a test run and see how things work, but it should be noted that there is a number of things that doesn’t work, so users need to be aware that this isn’t software meant to be upgrading devices with a daily driver version of the OS’ new flavor. WiFi, Bluetooth, NFC, and GPS are just a few of the things which aren’t working should users decide to flash this port of the Android M dev preview, but keep in mind that this is just for checking out a few of the new things which Android M offers before it’s ready for devices. Since the WiFi doesn’t work the tablet is basically useless, but if you were eager to see what Android M looks like at least, now you have the capability to do so. The good news here is that the port has also been designed to work alongside another ROM which uses have installed on the device, so they can move freely back and forth between them on the device, bringing them and their device back to working order.