Upgrading Nexus to Android 5.1

Nexus 4The Android 5.1 Experience on Nexus 4… and other Nexus

Finally, Google has released the Android 5.1 for Nexus devices.  The process to side-load this update (rather than wait for an over-the-air update) is notionally the same as upgrading to Android 5.0 but with some specific caveats – detailed below.

In summary, so far apart from an initial alarm that didn’t go off on the morning after upgrading, Android 5.1 has been a great improvement over 5.0.  On the Nexus 4 in particular:

  • The camera is much more responsive and doest crash
  • Overall UI experience is smoother and less laggy
  • The dialler and contacts screens are much more responsive
  • No silence audio-bug when making or receiving calls
  • Slightly bluetooth audio bug (resolved by deleting bluetooth cache and data)
  • SIM Unlock comes up instantly, rather than after a delay before (where you could start to use the phone even if  a security PIN was enabled)

 Specifics for upgrading from 5.0 to 5.1

You will need:

  1. OTA image file:
    1. http://android.clients.google.com/packages/ota/google_mako/e6789b4e57176ed28cd8b24747c134366b3908fc.signed-occam-LMY47O-from-LRX22C.e6789b4e.zip
      1. (NB not the system image file from Google Devloper)
  2. The latest Android SDK – use this to update your installation: http://developer.android.com/tools/help/sdk-manager.html
  3. Currently there is an issue where updating from Android 5.0 or later requires Android Debug Bridge version 1.0.32 or later – however the only version avaible from Google in the SDK is 1.0.31 – as noted on the Ubutnu forums
    1. You will have to search the web to install this newer version which for some reason was released then removed by Google.  On Mac OSX / Linux you can use Nexus Tools to install the later version which may install to a different location to your existing platform-tools.
  4. Follow the instructions from my last post to upgrade
  5. Enjoy!

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