Surprisingly, the new Nexus phones, currently known as the Nexus Sailfish and Nexus Marlin, won't be the first handsets to launch with Android Nougat, as that honor will instead fall on the LG V20.
But there's growing evidence that Android 7.1 will be launching soon and - if it does - there's a good chance that the new Nexus handsets will be the first phones to run that.
For one thing, a mention of Android 7.1 was spotted in the crash report section of Google's developer console and, as Phone Arena reports, a Reddit thread also points to Android 7.1 being used to install apps and visit websites.
Strangely, Android O is also listed as being used to install one redditor's app 4 times, which seems unlikely and was probably faked, but the Android 7.1 listing is believable, especially coupled with its presence on Google's developer console.
Daydreaming about 7.1
This all suggests Android 7.1 is well underway, but it's a tweet by David Ruddock (managing editor of Android Police) that really points to the update landing with the new Nexus phones, as he says as much, while also stating that Nougat's first maintenance release is 'confirmed' to be Android 7.1.
Google has already confirmed that it plans to launch a developer preview of the first Android Nougat maintenance release sometime this fall, so the timing could work.
Usually a maintenance release wouldn't give Android a big version number jump (since usually they're about maintenance rather than major changes), but we are still waiting for Google's Daydream VR service to launch, and that would easily be enough justification for a 0.1 number jump.
- iOS 10 is coming soon too
