Despite the generally unimpressive reviews that the newly released BlackBerry Priv got, the Ontario-based phonemaker appears willing to give its flagship a few more months to test if the market is still open to BlackBerry devices.
In fact, by 2016, BlackBerry would even upgrade the Priv to get the Android 6.0 OS, reports Phonearena. The pre-installed OS of the flagship is Android 5.1.
However, the tech website notes that BlackBerry did not provide a specific timetable what month or quarter of 2016 would the update happen because no one knows when would Marshmallow show up. But it reports that the Canadian firm talked to resellers on speeding up testing of Android updates, which means monthly security updates for the new owners of Priv.
Phonearena points out that consumers who bought their Priv from BlackBerry would not have problems with the monthly updates. But those who purchased it at carriers may have to wait longer for the updates because those carriers usually take longer before it tests updates.
The first blog post of David Kleidermacher, chief security officer of BlackBerry, lists three initiatives that are part of the Canadian company's Android vulnerability patch program. These are Android monthly security update process, "hotfix" patching and enterprise-managed updates.
He points out that because Android "is a complex, rapidly changing, massively popular, open source product," it is attractive and fertile target for attackers. He says BlackBerry's security research team is always studying the firmware and software content in new releases to find and address more Android problems before it cause more damage.