Google finally puts phones running 10-year-old Android out of their misery
Google has ended support for Android 6.0 Marshmallow, requiring devices to run Android 7.0 or newer to use Google Play services. The change marks the final phase for phones still operating on the ten‑year‑old version. Users of affected devices may lose access to certain apps and services as a result.
- ▪Google quietly discontinued support for Android 6.0 Marshmallow as of July 2026.
- ▪Google Play services now mandate a minimum of Android 7.0, rendering Marshmallow devices incompatible.
- ▪The move effectively ends the lifecycle for phones that have been running the ten‑year‑old OS version.
- ▪Devices that cannot be upgraded may lose access to the Play Store and related Google services.
- ▪The decision reflects Google's ongoing effort to streamline security and feature updates across newer Android releases.
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| Original publisher | Android Authority |
| Canonical URL | https://www.androidauthority.com/google-android-6-marshmallow-support-ended-3691168/ |
| Publication time | Fri, 24 Jul 2026 16:05:16 +0000 |
| Retrieval time | 2026-07-24T16:09:13.551Z |
| Last seen | 2026-07-24T16:09:13.551Z |
| Headline source | Publisher (no WeSearch rewrite) |
| Excerpt source | publisher body |
| Excerpt method | First ~120 words (~800 chars) of extracted publisher body, fair-use limited. |
| Summary | WeSearch · cerebras-chat (WeSearch summarizer) |
| Summary source text | contentText |
| Citation coverage | Summary is a WeSearch-generated derivative; primary citation is the original publisher URL. |
| Cluster | _Z2FS6EGS6Rg |
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| Ranking reason | Story pages are not engagement-ranked. Hub feeds use recency, with optional source-diversified chronological ordering (cap consecutive stories per source). No personalized ranking. |
| Publisher visit | Yes — open original |
| Substitutes article? | No — link-out required for full text |
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| AI summary | May WeSearch generate its own short summary of the article? | Limited |
| Retrieval / RAG | May the content be exposed for third-party retrieval-augmented generation? | Not asserted |
| Model training | May the content be used to train AI models? | Not asserted |
| Commercial reuse | May the content be reused commercially? | Not permitted |
Basis: Derived from the published RSS/Atom feed. Contact: [email protected]. Reviewed: 2026-07-24.
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