A forum post on the NVIDIA SHIELD forums posted last month (via Android Police), notes that Android 10 isn’t on the way because there’s not really any difference between Android 9 for the device, and Android 10. NVIDIA states that it decided to skip this software for the SHIELD because there was really no impact on end users. On top of that, it would have taken a lot of effort to implement the update for what would have been essentially very little gain on the user’s part. Basically, the reward for the user wasn’t worth the effort and time it would have taken for NVIDIA to develop the updated software. And from a developer side of things, it makes a whole lot of sense.
The NVIDIA SHIELD isn’t getting Android 10, but updates aren’t done
While Android 10 isn’t on the way, NVIDIA attempts to reassure users by stating that updates aren’t over. In the forum post, NVIDIA staff note that “there’s still a lot of development going into SHIELD.” That doesn’t necessarily mean an Android version jump is coming to Android 12 or anything like that. All it says is that NVIDIA still plans to put out updates for the SHIELD. This probably means that it’ll still get new features. And of course, users can expect to continue getting updates that bring along fixes and improvements. But it’s also possible that NVIDIA could be planning to develop Android 12 for the SHIELD in the future. A bump to Android 12 would also provide more of a difference in the experience for users than Android 10 would have. NVIDIA reiterates that it no longer talks about updates in advance like it used to. So unfortunately, it isn’t dropping any details about upcoming updates for the time being. Having said that, users can probably expect to get information on a new update when NVIDIA has an announcement ready to go in the future.
