The Samsung Nexus S which was released into the market in April 2011, might be too old to receive Google's Android 6.0 Marshmallow rollout, but it's not that unfortunate as a custom ROM of the latest operating system has been made available for the device.
International Business Times reports that an Android developer has accomplished sporting Google's latest 6.0 Marshmallow update to the older Nexus S smartphone. Dmitry Grinberg has released the unofficial custom ROM for the four-year-old device and he confirmed that most features of the device are still functioning normally. The custom ROM is a stable build of Android 6.0, and the smartphone's camera, Bluetooth, GPS, Wi-Fi and NFC works in a usual way.
Android fans who own Nexus S devices can try and flash the unofficial Android M custom ROM on their handsets and over-ride the outdated Android Jelly Bean OS.
According to Phone Arena, upon creating the custom ROM, Grindberg had to overcome many challenges before Marshmallow worked on the Samsung-made Nexus S. The most interesting of all was how it got two storage partitions just like the older smartphones unlike modern Android phones which only has a single storage partition. The older phones are noted to come with a large partition for stored media files, and a smaller one containing the OS and the apps.
Grindberg's challenge arises as the partition on the Nexus S could only hold 1GB of data, which wasn't enough for installing Android 6.0 Marshmallow and all of the apps. As a solution to the problem, the developer transferred everything to the 15GB media partition.
Anroid Headlines reported that there is a small list of things left to do on the device. This includes working on the battery statistics of the device, implementing a new kernel rather than the older one and fixing an issue with the APN setting reverting to IPv6. However, Dmitry does not consider any of these to be urgent as the ROM currently works.
For the Samsung Nexus S owners who have been hoping to experience Google's latest OS, this might be the chance to have their dream come true. However, it is advised to seek help from experts on software updates to avoid messing up the system.
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