The age-old Moto G4 is reportedly receiving an age-old software update
Who here remembers the Moto G4? Nobody? That may actually be for the best, as what we are about to report would likely infuriate owners of the nearly three year-old mid-ranger. The phone is currently receiving a major new software update, according to tweets and Reddit threads spotted by XDA Developers and 9To5Google, but the OS version that's rolling out over-the-air to the ancient 5.5-incher is hardly new.
We're talking about Android 8.1 Oreo, which was initially released for Pixel and Nexus devices way back in December 2017 as a relatively minor revision of the 8.0 build that made its stable debut a few months earlier. Of course, the Moto G4 never got the Android 8.0 update, jumping from its pre-installed 6.0 OS version to 7.0 Nougat around two years ago.
This painfully late UI makeover comes mere weeks after the G4 Plus received the same archaic goodie pack, and for the time being, there's no word on a US OTA delivery. In fact, Brazil is the only country where Moto G4 users are able to leave Nougat behind in favor of a slightly more modern Android flavor right now. That's probably going to change soon enough, sparking hopes of better software support from Motorola down the line.
After all, the company never intended to bring Oreos to the Moto G4 Plus, let alone the "regular" G4, making that promise by mistake and ultimately following through on it. The promise never extended to the Moto G4 either, so you should actually be happy you're getting this Android 8.1 update if you still own the Snapdragon 617-powered mid-ranger from 2016.
This could mean official Android 9.0 Pie distribution for the Moto G5 and G5 Plus will happen... someday too, even though the two phones were not included on the eligibility list released more than six months ago. That's far from guaranteed, but we can definitely keep our fingers crossed.
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