Google has announced that Android M will be out later in the year and as is Google’s usual practice, developers can now download an Android M factory image to flash onto a Nexus 5, Nexus 6, Nexus 9 and a Nexus Player.
Developers really shouldn’t need instructions on how to flash the developer preview images but for any that do, here’s how to flash the developer preview on one of the Nexus devices mentioned above.
To get started, you’ll need to have your device unlocked but you don’t need root
You’ll also need ADB and fastboot installed on your computer. Both of these tools come with the Android SDK.
- Download the factory image for your device.
- Unzip the file and save it.
- Connect your device to your computer via USB cable and ensure debugging mode is enabled.
- Open an ADB command line.
- Enter adb reboot bootloader to access your device’s bootloader. (OS X users should add ./ before this command.)
- Navigate to the folder containing your factory image.
- Enter flash-all to run the installation script. (OS X users should add ./ before this command.)
The script will take a few minutes. It’s typical for devices to linger on the boot animation for several minutes before starting up, so if yours takes a while don’t panic. Just wait patiently until the device boots up then you can log in and get developing.
Download Android M Developer Previews
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