HTC was one of the first companies to make public the list of devices that would be updated to the latest version of the Android operating system, Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Shortly after, the company announced the first non-Nexus smartphone to run this version of Android, the One A9. While the company has updated some variants of their devices to Marshmallow, last week the news emerged that in the U.S., HTC would begin rolling out the update for some carrier-branded versions of the HTC One M9 starting from today. A few hours ago, it was reported that Verizon is indeed rolling out the update for that phone and now some T-Mobile users of the One M9 are receiving the update as well.
The updating process consists of two parts; users need to install a small update in order to get the larger one which installs the new version of the operating system. The first update (2.11.531.180) weighs 98.64 MB and it will prepare the device to install Android 6.0. HTC recommends that users keep their phones charging during the whole process so the two-step procedure can be completed correctly. Using a Wi-Fi connection is also recommended so no additional data consumption charges are made. Once updated, users will be prompted to download and install the second update (3.39.531.7), this one weights 1.32 GB and it is said to take up to 60 minutes to install. The phone can’t be used during this process, not even for emergency calls, and users should not turn off or remove the memory card until the update is properly installed.
So far, HTC and T-Mobile haven’t published an official changelog for this update, but the company does not seem to have changed too many things on their other handsets running Android 6.0. Still, there are some useful new features such as a new App Permissions system which will offer users more control over what their apps can access; there’s also Google Now on Tap, which provides contextual information about whatever is displayed on the screen; finally, there’s Doze mode providing better battery life to this phone. Additionally, there are more under-the-hood changes to improve the overall performance. If you haven’t received the notification for this update, you can manually check by going into Settings, open the About section, then Software Updates and tap on Check Now.