Not all that long ago, the HTC One M9 family finally finished getting their updates to Android 6.0 Marshmallow. Now, it seems that HTC is announcing that the M9, along with the HTC 10 and the A9, are slated to receive official updates to Android 7.0 (Nougat). The unlocked versions of the phones will be getting their updates first, and once they all have them, HTC will move on to the carrier versions. This seems to mean that 2014’s much-lauded HTC One M8, also a somewhat recent Marshmallow recipient, will likely be left out in the cold, though there is no guarantee of that at the moment.
The three phones confirmed are HTC’s newest flagships, with mention of lower-end devices left out. The Tweet announcing the updates came complete with a poster, to celebrate the occasion. According to HTC’s Tweet, the HTC 10 will be the first of the three to receive its update to Nougat, which will happen at some point in the 4th quarter of 2016. The HTC One M9 will be getting the update next, then the A9 will complete the triumvirate. According to the Tweet, once all three unlocked phones have their updates, likely all before 2016 is over, work will begin on getting the carrier versions their updates. Comments on the Tweet asking about lower-end models, and of course the M8, went unanswered.
The official, final version of Nougat just started hitting Nexus devices a few days ago, and the Nexus 5 only got its inevitable unofficial Nougat ROM on Wednesday, which means that HTC has been pretty quick to assure fans that their phones, at least if they own one of those three, will be getting Nougat. 90 days is generally considered a pretty decent timeline for a manufacturer to get a new major Android release out after it hits Nexus devices, and that seems to be about what we’re looking at here. Technically, the language of the Tweet guaranteed a Q4 2016 release of a Nougat update only for the HTC 10, but since the main obstacle of a Nougat update will be updating HTC’s Sense interface accordingly, once that is done, the work can likely be applied across all three devices to expedite their updates.