Google has always offered up factory images of its Nexus devices, and if you"re an early adopter that just can"t wait to get the latest updates, you"ve probably used those images to get the latest version of Android. Of course, this method meant erasing all data from your device and having to set everything up again, which could take hours.
Of course, you could unzip the file and flash the images manually, passing up the flash-all command. Instead, you could do each command manually, omitting the fastboot erase userdata command; however, this method is unreliable at best.
Luckily, Google has you covered, as the firm is now publishing OTA images for its Nexus devices, along with the Pixel C. Here are the devices that Google is offering up images for:
- Nexus Player
- Nexus 9 (Wi-Fi)
- Nexus 9 (LTE)
- Nexus 7 (2013, Wi-Fi)
- Nexus 7 (2013, Mobile)
- Nexus 6
- Nexus 5
- Nexus 5X
- Nexus 6P
- Pixel C
It"s worth noting that the new OTA images were given their own site, so don"t expect to find them on the same page as the factory images. As you"d probably expect, the only OTA images available are for Android 6.0.1 Marshmallow.
Source: Engadget