The Nexus 6 just hasn’t had the best of luck over the last 6 to 12 months. Not only is it coming close to the end of its life cycle, but it hasn’t been receiving the latest OTA updates on time either. Granted, Google has sent them out much faster than most OEMs roll out their new updates. But Nexus devices are special and those who own them are used to getting these updates quicker than normal. Still, that has not been the case with the Android 7.0 and Android 7.1.1 Nougat updates for the Nexus 6.
Many hoped that since it was taking Google longer than normal to get the 7.0 and 7.1.1 Nougat updates pushed out, that it would mean all the critical bugs were squashed. Again, that has not been the case as even the March security update for Android ended up breaking Android Pay for the device. Thankfully Google resolved this quickly and had new factory images up on the website for manually flashers to download. That was was definitely an unusual incident, and it even starts to get more strange from there.
Google has just now started rolling out a new OTA update to Nexus 6 owners that will downgrade them from Android 7.1.1 to Android 7.0 Nougat. A lot of people thought this was a mistake, and it took several hours before Google released an official statement about the issue. Finally, though, a Google community manager replied to the Reddit thread linked below and they confirmed this was not an error, and that all Nexus 6 owners who want to be sent future OTA updates will need to downgrade to this “supported track” of Android 7.0 Nougat.
If you don’t mind manually flashing your updates, then the CM says you can stay on Android 7.1.1 Nougat if you want. But again, if you want to download official OTA updates sent to you from Google then you’ll need to accept that 7.0 Nougat OTA update that is currently rolling out. The CM even warns users that if they experience trouble downgrading with this OTA update then they will need to do a factory reset to resolve the issue.
