Samsung Reconsidering Android 4.0 On the Galaxy S

ghostoftiber writes "The original Galaxy S was the redheaded step child of the Samsung device line. ... Samsung announced over Christmas that the original Galaxy S was done, leaving its faithful fans in a position of having another year on their contracts with no upgrade path. Users were predictably incensed, and it looks like Samsung changed their minds. There's also the Samsung Vibrant development forum if you want Ice Cream Sandwich running on your Vibrant right now." The original source is bit iffy and implies that the release will not be fully featured (probably due to hardware constraints). Business Insider contacted Samsung directly and an official response is expected today.

Re:fandroids love getting buttfuckef

[Kenja]

Vulgar insults that make you look like a child aside. My first generation Motorola Drioid has also gotten updated frequently, its all in what you buy. Oh, and hows Siri running on your 3GS? Don't pretend that Apple doesn't try to get people to upgrade perfectly usable phones.

Re:Already dumped my Galaxy S

[Brian Feldman]

I had an Epic 4G. The upgrades were slim to none, taking almost 8 months to get Froyo. I eventually found ACSyndicate who make great roms for the device, including a 4.0 rom that was very well done minus the ability to use 4G.

I had to dump the device last week in favor of an iPhone though. I just can't deal with the fragmentation in Android devices, the lack of software upgrades, the sketchy nature of custom roms and the horrible device support from companies like Samsung.

Samsung blew it so bad on this device I've personally skipped out on buying their other products, including TV and Blue-ray players. I've also convinced my friends and family to go with other manufacturers because of it. If Samsung thinks their actions have no effect on their other products lines, they are sadly mistaken.

Yet for every one of you, there are plenty of people who do not have issues with their Samsung equipment and recommend Samsung to others. So I think that if you think you truly have an impact on any of their product lines, you are sadly mistaken.

Re:Wasn't the GPS issue fixed?

[forkfail]

Hard to fix a hardware problem with software.

This phone has provided me with no end of frustration. It's a $500 phone that I'm paying another eight bucks a month for warranty for over my two year contract, meaning I'll wind up paying a total of $700 for a phone that doesn't work right. And t-mobile wants to give me a $150 clique in replacement.

Some links follow.

It's a hardware problem in a number of phones:

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=878970 [xda-developers.com]

http://pocketnow.com/android/hardware-fix-for-vibrants-gps-problems [pocketnow.com]

T-mobile did push out a patch:

http://pocketnow.com/android/samsung-vibrant-gps-fix-finally-being-pushed-out-by-t-mobile [pocketnow.com]

But it didn't actually do the upgrade. No, you have to turn off your computer's firewall and virus protection to apply software patches to hardware problems...

http://www.samsung.com/us/support/SupportOwnersFAQPopup.do?faq_id=FAQ00026061&fm_seq=26229 [samsung.com]

for a patch that doesn't work anyway...

http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=988076 [xda-developers.com]

http://www.howardforums.com/showthread.php/1661605-Vibrant-Problems-Please-post-all-here-so-Samsung-Google-Engineers-can-see-them/page4 [howardforums.com]

Re:It's the business model

[MrMr]

Around here you can get an early upgrade from a competitor: get a new phone and finish your old contract...

Re:It's the business model

[dbcad7]

Had two brothers and a niece and nephew in town for Christmas.. They all have Android phones (as do I), as part of breakfast conversation I asked them if they were on Gingerbread.. none of them knew what that was, or what Froyo was, or what Eclair was., or that Ice Cream Sandwich was released and should be coming soon., We had four different models on 3 different carriers (2 different EVOS, Fascinate, Sensation).. there was nothing someone else had app wise that any of us could not get if we wanted.. In truth, although we all used our phones at times, other than directly asking to see their phone none of would have known what the other had.. no one said they liked anothers phone better than theirs.. there was more talk of the carrier differences than there was about phone models.. The reality of fragmentation is that it's not a big deal that some people would make it.. I also have a phone on Froyo that I assume will never go beyond it, but I got my 2 years out of it, and it is in a drawer as a backup phone.. Now the iPhone crowd car harp on the 3GS getting updates beyond the 2 and a half years, but the same type of enthusuuast, that would care, would also upgrade within that time. My 2 year old phone in the drawer had the same number of updates as the 3GS.. The Galaxy S that this article is about, has also had the same number of updates as the 3GS, and in over a year less time.

business as usual

[roc97007]

As early adopters of the Galaxy S, my family lived the pain for a year and finally dumped them, paid the penalty, and changed carriers. Not only was the build quality terrible (some were dead in their box, others were delivered with bad gyros and nonfunctional gps -- I mean completely nonfunctional, not the haphazard functionality they had when they were working) but Samsung seemed grimly determined to avoid upgrades at all cost, apparently expecting users to do the iPhone thing and buy a new device yearly in order to get a new software capability contained within the incrementally newer OS.

And... ok fine. If that's the way they want to do business, there's no stopping them. But we don't have to buy their stuff.

Indications are, they're managing their tablet products the same way. Stylishly designed, but don't buy one expecting the next version of Android to ever be available. If it is, bonus. It's better to be pleasantly surprised than disappointed.

But better yet, buy from a vendor with a better reputation for updates.

Mind you, there will be a time when timely updates will be less important, but Android is still on the steep end of the curve, and issues are still being worked out. (I got an answer to my bug report a couple weeks ago -- proxy settings on a network-by-network basis is available as of version 3, which will probably never make it to my phone. Sigh.) In another year or two when Android becomes less of a new technology and more of a commodity item, updates may decrease in importance. But for now, it's update or lose a customer. The Android crowd isn't the same as the iOS crowd. If we don't get what we want, we don't camp outside the store to be the first to get the next device from the same vendor. We change vendors.