According to reports, the HTC One M9 is currently being updated to Android 5.1.1 Lollipop, while its predecessor is going to have to wait a little longer until the update is available on it. The M9 already got Android 5.1 on some of its variants on certain carriers about a month ago, although Verizon decided to skip the major version for their users, much to the disappointment of pretty much everyone who owned the device.
Additionally, the Android M has been promised to owners of the HTC One M9, the M9+ and various other HTC phones, in an official announcement by Jeff Gordon. The update may also arrive to the previous device in the line, the HTC One M8, but we don’t know the timeline for its release, nor if it will match the exact same user experience as the OS version on other devices.
It’s also been reported that the HTC One M8 will get the Sense 7 UI upgrade when it receives Android M, although exact details remain unknown. HTC One M9 users have already been enjoying the smoothness of the new UI version, and have been reporting very positive impressions from it.
The update reportedly adds a lot of polish to the user experience of the M9, making it even smoother and improving its performance significantly, although the device still leaves a little to be desired here and there. The main problem in most people’s eyes is that it didn’t manage to meet fans’ expectations for a phone that was supposed to be the successor of the M8, and it wasn’t exactly the Android powerhouse that people wanted to get from it.
Still, the M9 managed to score some positive reviews for its overall good balance of features and an acceptable price point, and the phone has been pretty popular on the market, despite being overall less liked than its predecessor. We don’t know what the company is planning for the future of the line, but many of their fans have been urging them to take a step back and rethink their current strategy, as they seem to be in dire need of a new approach for the next installment, whenever it might arrive.
Analysts and experts have been trying to make sense of the situation with HTC’s position on the market, and the common verdict seems to be that they need to innovate more and be a bit more aggressive in demonstrating their phones’ unique qualities compared to their competitors. The company used to have a very solid position thanks to the release of the HTC One M8, and the device went down in history as one of the most capable Android phones, period – but things changed when the M9 came out and disappointed some fans and critics.
Meanwhile, other companies have been moving forward very steadily and they’ve managed to overcome HTC in various aspects of their design and production quality. The company no longer has that head advantage in this area, and most people seem to consider them as far less interesting than they used to be.
Because of all this, the company should pay particular attention to the way they’re handling the production and release of their next flagship phone. We wouldn’t be surprised if they were already working on it, but they haven’t been giving any concrete hints so far, so at this point we can just wait and see what will happen in the next few months. If a new phone is coming up, we should at least start seeing rumors about it soon enough.
Mo versi tweeted yesterday saying the verizon 5.1 update for the m9 is looking at a TA of this upcoming wednesday, they needed to add the stagefright fix for the m9 which is why it took some extra time