Unlocked HTC 10 Flagships Now Receiving Android 7.0 Nougat OTA Update

While shoppers are busy trampling over each other in pursuit of the hottest Black Friday deals, HTC 10 owners can sit back and wait for a treat that is arriving at no cost. It's Nougat, the delicious Android 7.0 update that is being pushed out today to unlocked HTC 10 devices. It's not clear how HTC might be staggering the release, but the company did confirm that testing is finished and that it is rolling out Nougat starting today.

The caveat here is that only unlocked HTC 10 handsets are getting the update. While HTC was able to complete what it calls TA (technical assistance) testing, wireless carriers that tack on their own software bits will have to perform additional testing before certifying an update for use on their networks. That will take some additional time—HTC 10 owners who don't own an unlocked model can expect Nougat to arrive early next year.

HTC 10

Android 7.0 brings with it a bunch of notable changes and improvements to Google's mobile operating system. Improved battery life is one of them, as well as dozens of new emojis and a split-screen mode that lets users have two apps open at the the same time, each one taking up half of the display.

The latest version of Android also introduces a redesign to notifications. In Android 7.0, more information is crammed into the notifications area without taking up more screen real-estate. It's an overall cleaner design that makes reading alerts quicker and easier.

Nougat is slowly finding its way onto more devices and now registers a blip (but only a blip) on Google's Android dashboard, which shows the OS being installed on 0.3 percent of all Android devices. Android 5.0-5.1 Lollipop is still the most widely used version of Android with a 34.1 percent share of the market, followed by a close race between Android 4.4 KitKat (25.2 percent) and Android 6.0 Marshmallow (24 percent).