Samsung Electronics, the South Korean consumer electronics giant, has reportedly been looking for volunteers and Android enthusiasts to beta test its Marshmallow ROM designated to hit two of its 2015 flagships – the Galaxy S6 and the Galaxy S6 Edge. While the company is reportedly looking for beta-testers for both the aforementioned devices in South Korea, the UK unit of the company was originally said to have been looking for volunteers to beta test the Marshmallow ROM for the regular Galaxy S6 and not the curved-edged S6 Edge. However, latest reports now indicate otherwise, but more on that later. Either way, now that willing volunteers are presumably signing-up to the program in droves, the company has reportedly started to roll out the Marshmallow ROM to the chosen users, according to a post on XDA. SamMobile actually has also posted some screenshots, thanks to someone called Jack, who’s apparently one of the beta-testers to have received the update on his phone.
One thing to note here is that, amidst all the confusion, it isn’t entirely clear as to whether the beta program in the UK extends to the Galaxy S6 Edge as well. While Samsung UK’s tweet did not mention the S6 Edge, SamMobile seems to be reporting that the Marshmallow update is now rolling out to the S6 Edge as well, along with the regular S6. There are also a couple of screenshots in the gallery below that supposedly shows the official Marshmallow software running on the S6 Edge, so hopefully, owners of both the devices in the UK are getting the beta version of Android 6.0 Marshmallow rolled out to them as we speak. It remains to be seen if Samsung will introduce the program to more regions of the world in the future.
For the uninitiated, Marshmallow is the latest version of Android from Google, and comes with some nifty little features like an app permissions manager, native support for fingerprint scanner, Google Now on Tap, an all-new app drawer, more intuitive volume controls and a battery saving feature called ‘Doze’ that disables network access for low-priority apps when the phone’s not in use. Interestingly, the latest version of Android also brings back the ability to transfer app data to microSD cards, something that had been missing for the past few years, ever since Android 4.4 KitKat did away with the ability to install apps on external storage.
