I found the condescending attitude toward the CSR to be completely out of line. Clearly this person no decision making capacity at Samsung. Why would you be so rude to someone that has done nothing to you?
The whole Froyo on the Galaxy S debacle has been nuts. It was promised in September. Since then it has been plagued with deployment problems and is still in purgatory for the US users.
That said, I have become a big fan of Samsung's hardware.
Title is false. Samsung will not elaborate on their plans. The CSR clearly said that they DO plan to push Froyo to the phone. He just can't say when.
They have no plans for Gingerbread yet, though, which is understandable since it's so new. I'll be surprised if it gets it.
I'm actually seriously considering dropping my Vibrant and getting a G2 or Nexus S. The G1 had a decent record for getting updates, and the Nexus S is a developer phone so I could just put the latest on it at any time.
I looked into upgrading my Vibrant with a third-party ROM, but it didn't seem to be as easy as when I did my G1 like that, so I didn't do it yet. But that was months ago, so I'm seriously considering it again.
It took me a while to suck it up and flash a ROM on my Vibrant, but I'm happily running Nero v3 (http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=883379) now and I keep kicking myself for not doing it sooner. The difference in 2.1 to 2.2 is incredible. It's really not that difficult to install it, either.
What carrier are you on, and how stable is it? I'm assuming the install wipes all data from your phone? Is there a good way to back up your contacts and restore them?
I'm on T-mobile. It's quite stable. It's crashed about as much as the Samsung stock ROM. You can back up your data (most of it, anyway) with Titanium Backup (available in the app store, both free and pro). If your contacts are tied to your Google account, then they're automatically backed up anyway.
As someone who has a G1 and is stuck with 1.6 I can say that the record wasn't so great.
This seems to be the main problem I have with Android. It's not fragmentation, its simply abandoning people.
I have an iPhone 3G that my company provided for me, it was released on July 11, 2008. My G1 was released 3 months later on October 22, 2008.
My 3G is running iOS 4.1 (8B117) which was pushed to it officially through iTunes. The latest and greatest iOS.
My G1 is running Android 1.6, which was released September 2009, that means that for less than a year I was graced with the cutting edge updates, and then nothing, no longer supported, discontinued.
That's what's so frustrating, I've played with newer Android phones and the Operating System (now 3 releases more mature) is fantastic, but I'm stuck with a frumpy, slow, buggy OS.
This is what I can't get past when buying an Android phone, how do I get one that's going to be supported for the lifetime of at least my 2 year contract? It seems to be such a gamble, every week there's a new "Best Android Handset Ever." The handset I buy looks obsolete in 3 months, and if it were just my lizard brain thinking so I'd have to just grow up and get over it. The real danger is that the handset manufacturers and the carriers feel the same way, and suddenly my new hotness is old news, and no one seems to care if I get the best software anymore.
So my G1 contract is over and I'll probably drop this phone and switch over to an iPhone 4, at least I'll know in 2 years it will still be supported and function reasonably well.
I wish the carriers and phone makers would stop "improving" their Android builds. Then you could just upgrade the day after Google releases a new version.
If you want to improve an open source project, don't fork it and forget about it. Send a fucking patch.
(Fortunately, AOSP seems to run fine on many phones. Looking forward to Cyanogenmod Gingerbread for my EVO 4G :)
I've used Samsung's Galaxy S (my cousin just got one over the holidays). After having used a Nexus One and experienced "pure Android", it absolutely infuriated me to have to navigate through Samsung's crappy interface changes. Not only do they have "uninstallable" apps like monthly-fee-based AT&T Navigator (an inferior alternative to the free Google Maps which I'm sure AT&T demanded), but the Samsung customizations to the camera, apps list, etc. are completely unnecessary, inflexible, and worthless.
As I said before, I've used Android on the Nexus One and it really is fine "as is". I can understand why AT&T would try to trick their users into using their own apps that they can charge users for. But why would Samsung actually dump what I can only imagine is a substantial sum of money into doing stupid customizations to the camera app, applications list, and other parts of the phone that do nothing to improve the user experience?
Anyone who's attempted to or successfully installed an unofficial ROM, would love to hear your experiences in terms of difficultly of install and stability. Please include what carrier you're on.
I'm a HTC Hero user (US, CDMA version) on Sprint, and I'm currently running a Cyanogen build on it. I've actually run a number of different ROMs on my phone, Cyanogen just tends to be the most stable, and cruft-free. There are step by step guides for rooting and installing a new bootloader to your phone, which are all fairly easy to follow. Once you've done that, it's just a matter of dropping the ROM image onto your SD card, booting into recovery mode, and hitting install. Not a one click solution, but given an hour or two, simple to follow.
As to the quality of the ROMs themselves, it (of course) varies. I've never had anything that was just outright unusable (except maybe the stock ROM -- it was ungodly slow). The first few ROMs I used crashed about once or twice a week, which was annoying, but typically happened while I wasn't using the phone, so I just felt it vibrate in my pocket. Now that I've switched to Cyanogen though, this problem has completely disappeared, and the phone is very quick, especially compared to the stock image. Seriously, if anyone else has a HTC Hero, I'd recommend rooting and moving to the Cyanogen mod ROM, it's like having a completely different phone. Plus, I get to be on 2.2, while the stock ROM is still on 2.1
The only downside of it so far is that I couldn't manage to get my carrier voicemail working with the image. There may be a workaround for this, I just haven't looked. Since Google Voice integrates so well with the handset, you can tell your phone to forward all of your voice mail to VG, but not use it for any thing else (or choose when to use it for calls, etc., it's amazingly flexible).
I use the xda-developers forum for all of my rooting and ROM needs, and you can probably browse some of the feedback and FAQs there if you have any questions. Alternatively, my e-mail is in my profile if you have any questions you can't seem to find answers to.
Agree. I am also on a CDMA Hero. I rooted to get to 2.1 when Sprint did not initially provide OTA updates and only had Win/Mac paths for upgrade.
Rooted and never looked back. I went for a Sense-ified 2.1 build. Finally went AOSP to get to 2.2 and it feels like a new phone. It is so much smoother without the lag on user actions that I was seeing before (most notably going to/from phone/dialer/answering use). I'll probably never buy another phone that is not rootable at the time of purchase, and I won't run a carrier-modified (ala Sense, etc) build either. AOSP is near-perfect. I do miss visual voicemail, but I think there are workarounds documented on xda (I can't really be bothered to investigate, so I suppose that it is not bothering me too much).
I have Galaxy S I9000 (european version) and installed a custom rom on it a few days ago. It was not that hard, at least not much harder than installing roms on my G1. You just root the device by flashing some special kernel, then put some files on the sdcard, boot into recovery and you're done. If you are still on 2.1 you can even skip the rooting part.
I think the key word in the headline that removes this from being trollish is "immediate". They have plans to release Froyo, but no actual date. He presumes that if a release was imminent, they'd have a general release date for it. So there are plans, but no immediate plans for release.
If you read the chat transcript he posted - the condescending attitude, get a real job comment, use of "android devotees" etc. all sound like classical trolling.
I am totally not sure he even owns an Android phone to begin with. Anyway, considering all this I called it troll.
19 comments
[ 3.4 ms ] story [ 59.2 ms ] threadThat said, I have become a big fan of Samsung's hardware.
They have no plans for Gingerbread yet, though, which is understandable since it's so new. I'll be surprised if it gets it.
I'm actually seriously considering dropping my Vibrant and getting a G2 or Nexus S. The G1 had a decent record for getting updates, and the Nexus S is a developer phone so I could just put the latest on it at any time.
I looked into upgrading my Vibrant with a third-party ROM, but it didn't seem to be as easy as when I did my G1 like that, so I didn't do it yet. But that was months ago, so I'm seriously considering it again.
Thanks again!
This seems to be the main problem I have with Android. It's not fragmentation, its simply abandoning people.
I have an iPhone 3G that my company provided for me, it was released on July 11, 2008. My G1 was released 3 months later on October 22, 2008.
My 3G is running iOS 4.1 (8B117) which was pushed to it officially through iTunes. The latest and greatest iOS.
My G1 is running Android 1.6, which was released September 2009, that means that for less than a year I was graced with the cutting edge updates, and then nothing, no longer supported, discontinued.
That's what's so frustrating, I've played with newer Android phones and the Operating System (now 3 releases more mature) is fantastic, but I'm stuck with a frumpy, slow, buggy OS.
This is what I can't get past when buying an Android phone, how do I get one that's going to be supported for the lifetime of at least my 2 year contract? It seems to be such a gamble, every week there's a new "Best Android Handset Ever." The handset I buy looks obsolete in 3 months, and if it were just my lizard brain thinking so I'd have to just grow up and get over it. The real danger is that the handset manufacturers and the carriers feel the same way, and suddenly my new hotness is old news, and no one seems to care if I get the best software anymore.
So my G1 contract is over and I'll probably drop this phone and switch over to an iPhone 4, at least I'll know in 2 years it will still be supported and function reasonably well.
If you want to improve an open source project, don't fork it and forget about it. Send a fucking patch.
(Fortunately, AOSP seems to run fine on many phones. Looking forward to Cyanogenmod Gingerbread for my EVO 4G :)
As I said before, I've used Android on the Nexus One and it really is fine "as is". I can understand why AT&T would try to trick their users into using their own apps that they can charge users for. But why would Samsung actually dump what I can only imagine is a substantial sum of money into doing stupid customizations to the camera app, applications list, and other parts of the phone that do nothing to improve the user experience?
edit: grammar
As to the quality of the ROMs themselves, it (of course) varies. I've never had anything that was just outright unusable (except maybe the stock ROM -- it was ungodly slow). The first few ROMs I used crashed about once or twice a week, which was annoying, but typically happened while I wasn't using the phone, so I just felt it vibrate in my pocket. Now that I've switched to Cyanogen though, this problem has completely disappeared, and the phone is very quick, especially compared to the stock image. Seriously, if anyone else has a HTC Hero, I'd recommend rooting and moving to the Cyanogen mod ROM, it's like having a completely different phone. Plus, I get to be on 2.2, while the stock ROM is still on 2.1
The only downside of it so far is that I couldn't manage to get my carrier voicemail working with the image. There may be a workaround for this, I just haven't looked. Since Google Voice integrates so well with the handset, you can tell your phone to forward all of your voice mail to VG, but not use it for any thing else (or choose when to use it for calls, etc., it's amazingly flexible).
I use the xda-developers forum for all of my rooting and ROM needs, and you can probably browse some of the feedback and FAQs there if you have any questions. Alternatively, my e-mail is in my profile if you have any questions you can't seem to find answers to.
Rooted and never looked back. I went for a Sense-ified 2.1 build. Finally went AOSP to get to 2.2 and it feels like a new phone. It is so much smoother without the lag on user actions that I was seeing before (most notably going to/from phone/dialer/answering use). I'll probably never buy another phone that is not rootable at the time of purchase, and I won't run a carrier-modified (ala Sense, etc) build either. AOSP is near-perfect. I do miss visual voicemail, but I think there are workarounds documented on xda (I can't really be bothered to investigate, so I suppose that it is not bothering me too much).
I am using Darky's rom: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=814091 It is stable, fast and does not have the strange GUI modifications.
TL;DR: It's easy, try it.
Wrong title - they have no plans for Gingerbread but are working on Froyo update per the chat logs you yourself posted.
I am totally not sure he even owns an Android phone to begin with. Anyway, considering all this I called it troll.