While Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow saw its release back in 2015, it wasn’t until February of 2016 that owners of NVIDIA’s SHIELD Tablet got a taste of the new OS. Due to various issues, the update wound up being pulled but eventually made its way back to NVIDIA’s newest portable game machine and media streamer. The update, however, only came to the WiFi version of the tablet. Reportedly due to carrier software incompatibility, the update for the LTE-compatible version of the SHIELD Tablet was delayed, at least in the United States. Now, three months later, U.S. owners of NVIDIA’s SHIELD Tablet LTE are finally beginning to see their Marshmallow updates roll in, bringing a huge array of features, both the standard parts of Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow and some new bits and pieces courtesy of Nvidia.
The update includes all of the normal Marshmallow goodness like Doze Mode, Google Now on Tap, granular control of app permissions, and the System UI Tuner. On NVIDIA’s end, the biggest change is support for the new Vulkan graphics API, enhancing the tablet’s gaming chops even further and allowing new games to run, along with 3D and VR apps that ran poorly or weren’t supported before. Emojis have been updated, the button layout for navigation buttons in landscape mode has been changed around, compass issues have been fixed, Wi-Fi on waking from sleep has been improved, Lasso Capture icons in landscape mode have been repositioned, Gamepad Mapper issues have been fixed, issues with apps on SD cards have been fixed, and there are a ton of stability and security enhancements. Frustrated Doom 3 players will find that their HDMI-out woes are cured, as well. The update also contains Android security patches up to the March 2016 patch.
The update is rolling out gradually to users nationwide right now with no signs of stopping, but if you don’t have a notification and a reboot doesn’t do the trick, the option to check for the update manually through your settings menu is always there. At the moment, there don’t seem to be many reports of problems with the update, but as it has only been released today, those who like to wait until they’re sure an update is bug-free before taking it may have a couple of days to wait before they can know for sure if any problems are cropping up for other users.