So it’s that time of the year again where everybody will be joking around what the “N” in Android N will be. I personally hope it will be something cool, like “nunchucks”, but we all know it will be a dessert of some sort again. But if you’re interested in getting your hands on the developer version of Android N, Google is now opening up a beta program exactly for that. Or you can just manually flash the image files.
The beta program is only available for Google’s premium Nexus devices for now. That includes the Nexus 6, Nexus 9, Nexus 5X, Nexus 6P, Nexus Player, and the Pixel C. What you will be getting is the latest version of the Android N beta that you can test around in your Google device.
There are two ways to do this – enroll in Google’s beta program and (when approved), you will get the Android N update over the air (OTA). This comes with its own benefits – you’ll be getting OTA updates to Android N beta as long as the program is running. The downside is, you have to wait for approval and the OTA update itself to roll out to you.
The other way is to flash your device with the Android N beta factory image for your specific device. The upside is you can experience Android N right the heck now. The downside is that you will not be getting OTA updates for your Android N, and will have to keep flashing factory images of newer versions as available. Here are the links for the factory images, per device.
• Nexus 5X “bullhead”: bullhead-npc56p-preview-6c877a3d.tgz
• Nexus 6 “shamu”: shamu-npc56p-preview-54b13c67.tgz
• Nexus 6P “angler”: angler-npc56p-preview-85ffc1b1.tgz
• Nexus 9 “volantis”: volantis-npc56p-preview-0e8ec8ef.tgz
• Nexus 9G “volantisg” (LTE): volantisg-npc56p-preview-1bafdbfb.tgz
• Nexus Player “fugu”: fugu-npc56r-preview-7027d5b6.tgz
• Pixel C “ryu”: ryu-npc56p-preview-335a86a4.tgz
Remember, make sure you are flashing the correct image for your device. If you flash the wrong image, you may just get a notification that the image is incompatible. Worst case, you brick your device. So flash at your own risk.
