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Alright Samsung Galaxy owners, be prepared to find the closest corner and begin weeping uncontrollably. Although the likes of the Samsung Moment, Sprint HTC Hero, Droid Eris and HTC Hero are all getting confirmed updates to Android 2.1, rumor has it that not only will the Samsung Galaxy NOT get a 2.1 upgrade… but they’ll be stuck on Android 1.5 for the remainder of the phone’s life cycle.
This isn’t official at ALL – initial rumors said the phone WOULD get a 2.1 upgrade but TheUnwired is reporting that out at Mobile World Congress, their sources are saying the phone will never get an upgrade. How awful would that be? The Samsung Galaxy is the company’s first ever Android Phone; how you can reward the first customers of your Android phones by leaving them stuck in the past is beyond me.
I mean… if the phone weren’t powerful enough to upgrade I would understand… but this thing doesn’t even have 1.6! We know you can do it too, because the Samsung Moment is on the upgrade list.
Rumor has it with Magic being stuck in 1.6 too. This business decisions are making me feel i got to the wrong platform.
no more navigation
no more bt-filetransfer
other samsung phones users will get the same treatment
Well,
I think it’s not really Google’s (nor Android’s fault) but the companies got the whole idea of Android wrong. I’ll just never buy a Samsung again (was my first one anyways). They won’t care about a single customer that’s gone but I feel better with it. Anyways, their TFTs are great, thanks god there’s no need to update them.
My next Smartphone might be a BlackBerry, they even provide upgrades for their older smartphones to their new 5.x os.
Alternatively Apple seems to support their iPhone for a long time, too.
it will get update, 1.6 though…
And therein lies the reason I returned my Samsung Behold 2 before my 14 day period was up and finally bit the bullet and purchased the Nexus one. And that’s the end of that.
These phones that are not really all that old are being left behind update wise, sounds just like Windows Mobile. Funny how a lot of the problems Android was supposed to fix are just as rampant as ever. Phone prices are just as high, there is no cohesion in updating the OS, and even newer phones are shipping with older versions of the OS. Maybe thats the signs of too much freedom. I’ll be happy with my Blackberry for the time being.
I’ll never buy anything that has samsung written on it, not just phones. We were used as beta testers, the device was so buggy after release that it was almost unusable.
The problem is that Samsung wont even officialy talk about it. At least if they officially said that there would be no updates people could move on (never buying another Samsung device again), but they wont even do that. I now have a Nexus One, problem solved.
if this is the end of the development, then at least let samsung help developers to keep the unit up to date.
Hmm great. This means I am paying the price to be an early adopter, buying the Galaxy the instant it was available in Germany. So that means, bye bye Samsung for me. Support and information politics quite suck. I am getting Mails every now and then from Motorola, about their new phones and dev stuff, yet Samsung fails to deliver such information when asked for. Even their community platform (a forum) seems pretty much dead, no official answer there yet.
Altogether, keep your hands off products from firms w/o any commitment. Mods with 2.0 are floating round for the Galaxy, therefore I doubt a lacking firmware update is due to technical reasons.
Hector, if this makes you think you backed the wrong horse just count yourself lucky you didn’t jump onto the G1. I hate mine like poison now. Even with cyanogenMod it’s laggy & constantly force quitting things like THE PHONE app. I love hitting a button & waiting for the damn thing to implement the command or better yet it doesn’t & I have to yank the battery out AGAIN. To be fair though that’s what I get for buying a 1st gen product but stuff like what Samsung is doing only serves to hurt Android as a whole. Most phones that people have bought will not support upgrades to the OS. Even the ones getting 2.1 (Hero, Eris, etc) will probably never see another upgrade. It is Google’s fault not the manufacturers. Google never should have speced for a lowest common denominator. The least powerful Android phone available should be the Droid and then it goes up from there but the whole platform is hamstrung by all of these handsets using tech from ’08. Then everyone who bought one of these handsets (which is most of us) feel angry and left out despite our early adoption and/or loyalty. This breeds bad PR and customers fleeing to competitors. When I can buyout my TMo contract for $100 in May I’ll be switching to an iPhone.
The rumor might be false.
http://twitter.com/SamsungFirmware
says there will be android upgrade to galaxy and spica by end Feb.
He has got insider sources in Samsung. and runs the website samsung-firmware.webs.com and is mostly reliable with his info on samsung firmwares.
@skilcraft I strongly disagree. I love the variety that android offers. From small phones up to big packed smartphones. And eventually all the old “small” phones phase out, and even new “low cost” phones will be powerful enough for a good OS.
Yet I do not understand why phones like the Galaxy are getting dropped just like that. They do have quite powerful hardware, yet it is handled like a fire and forget device.
NO updates, no Information.
IPhone has the advantage to be only one (or few) premium device, highly controlled by apple. Locked up and fast because of that. And yet this is what bothers me about such a device, it should not be locked up like this. A mate can’t even program for his iPhone (doesnt own a mac, needs win since he is blind and his screenreader works there).
Anyhow, it depends on what you want to do, and a low cost device might fit for most people with some nice apps. That is OK :)
Rumor seems to be true. sorry for the earlier post.
http://www.areamobile.de/news/14321-samsung-galaxy-und-galaxy-spica-android-updates-kommen-ende-februar
@lazarus101
It wasn’t *almost* unusable after release, it was *unusable*! And they didn’t fix most of the issues…
A google code project as already been started a few weeks ago. The goal is to get the 2.1 AOSP fully working on the Galaxy.
The phone part is mostly working, as well as the accelerometer and the wifi, plus some other stuff. The rom is still in heavy dev but is already usable.
link : http://code.google.com/p/gaosp/
Chris,
I agree with you in principle but not in practice. Google cannot possibly hope to succeed with Android on the premise of it being all things to all people. That is what they initially thought but look at their recent moves (NexusOne, Chrome OS, etc). I would argue that over the last year and some change they’ve reevaluated a thing or two and decided that the best way forward from a development and marketing standpoint is to try and stuff the genie back in the bottle a little bit. Hence the NexusOne. The future of smartphones is premium not proletariat. Apple’s success more than anything comes from the consistency of their user experience. There is one phone that runs one OS and yes only one place to get apps but 99% of users don’t care because the apps they want and/or need are there for them. Setting UI aside this also means that you have one product that is easier to market consistently. Notice how Apple makes the iPhone’s ads not AT&T. Now look at the drastic inconsistency and lack of message on the Android side. You have phones that people are buying brand new today that are still running 1.5 or 1.6. Now how many average consumers do you think are aware of this discrepancy? We all know that most probably aren’t. A month or two down the road there’s an app you want but you have to have 2.1 (aka “real” Android) to run it, you go to upgrade and discover you can’t. That’s when formally happy customers turn to angry dissenters and maybe they don’t renew that service contract. Make no mistake, Google’s new approach to Android and even phone sales is going to usher in a more closed and more profitable platform. If Android 2 was the “real” Android then that makes the Droid the “real” G1. Just like how the iPhone 3G was the “real” iPhone. But the first gen iPhones have been supported with all current upgrades at least to this point which is more than I and fellow G1 owners can say.
lazarus101 wrote on February 16, 2010
> I’ll never buy anything that has samsung
> written on it, not just phones. We were
> used as beta testers, the device was so
> buggy after release that it was almost
> unusable.
What he said. And there are many more who feel the same. Samsung, you stink at customer relations!
@skilcraft
I fully agree with the core message of your statement.
From my point of view, the situation is a bit different though. The android community (Open Handset Alliance, et al) fails at focusing. There is the iPhone, yes. It is the premium product, and will be. Yet android is a different approach. I do not see why smaller devices should not be capable of running Android 2.x. They will not run with all that nice shiny UIs et al, but that is fine (what I am missing about my Galaxy is WPA2 Enteprise, not Games). So OHA should make the core upgradeable, even w/o the nice graphics stuff. One Android version, running on nearly all phones (but the ones phasing out). All the “nice” UI/playstuff (turn by turn navigation et al) is less important.
From my perspective they should divide the Androids in different classes, and market them as such. The premium segment is not all, yet I guess within Europe/US that is the primer market, which defines the Image. In that area they have to compete with iPhone and should try to take the lead in some ways.
Quite honestly I do not find it too bad that G1 is kinda old today, they did a good job at trying to keep up. No such effort can be seen with the Galaxy. It was the premium product, and failed miserably.
Long term support as seen with apple, and a well defined core set of functionality (within one class?) could save a lot of problems. I do not think, like you said in a way, that consumers should be aware of buying 1.6, 1.5 or 2.0. They should know that each handset has its pros and cons.
It harms the Android community quite a bunch, if they continue to fragment everything without any system. Saying there is “the Android Device” is just wrong, and hurts in the long run. There is “the Galaxy”, “the Droid/Milestone”, “the Nexus”. Propagate them, instead of “the Android Phone”. One product, one class, few compromises, one big price, that is Apple. Android can and will be more, but without structure it will fail.
Android for everything is one thing and I will support it a good deal, yet they should communicate openly in which direction every device goes.
As far as Google’s strategy goes, I think they miscalculated. They probably hoped for stronger support from handset manufactures, and I think HTC and Motorola do a good job at it. Other companies, like Samsung, risk the image of Android.
Chris,
Again I agree with you in principle but let’s skin this cat a different way. The shift that has to occur in everyone’s thinking is that these devices are phones. They are not. They are micro computers. The have operating systems, they have application development, they have processors & RAM, and yes they have the ability to make phone calls but that ability is just one more app installed on the device. Gradually people are developing PC like expectations for these devices. Now if I sold you a computer last year for any operating system (Mac, Windows, etc) you would correctly assume that that computer would stay relevant for at least it’s usable life barring any major switches in technology (ie Apple switching to intel processors). You would expect that you could upgrade the OS and install all but perhaps the most advanced/ specialized applications. I bet this is what you thought when you bought your Samsung. It’s what I thought when I bought my G1. Now the tiered system you describe is all well good but it’s not really how consumers behave is it? People don’t want tiered. People want what is perceived to be the “best”. Microsoft sells way more copies of Windows 7 Ultimate than they do Home (if you discount pre-installed copies). You can’t expect consumers to understand why this device despite being brand new has an older OS on it than this one. Or why the device they bought yesterday can’t run the app they discovered this afternoon. In other words people don’t want pros and cons. Like it or not Android was birthed in a post iPhone world and in that world consumers have expectations and those expectations are high. There are no tiered iPhones (except in storage capacity) there’s just THE iPhone. I don’t work for Google but I assure you that the Nexus One is just the first volley in Google wrestling back control and trying to create One Android. OHA be damned.
Oh damn… I hope the behold 2 can support 2.0
So 1.6 is guaranteed but 2.0 is iffy great…
So does any one know if this is affecting all Galaxy branded phones (I’m thinking Spica/Portal) or is it just the original??
Hate to say I told you so! Samsung did never phoneupdates in their history why should they support android while develop their own OS at the same time. I am sorry but Samsung was crap is crap and will ever be the crappiest manufacture of mobile phones :(
New rumors point at a 2.0/2.1 update after summer.
Piss on Samsung for not offering any information about this. Even if they do release a 2.0 firmware, I’ll buy my next Android phone from someone who releases a bit more information.
And if they don’t, I’ll just put on a 3rd party ROM when one becomes mature. That’s one of the benefits of Android, as a platform, regardless of who is manufacturing the hardware.
I’m with you…
I’m quite happy with the phone (spec-wise), but I really envy 2.1 users for all the improvements to the platform (think navigation, better camera app, BT functionality, wpa2 enterprise, and maybe some battery life optimizations)
Apart from that, I’d like to see some bugs fixed too… (like when you charge the battery while the phone is on, it will work for 2 days, and when you charge it while the phone is off, it will work for 3,5 days; touch screen never working while in call, even when you’re not holding the phone to your head;…)
Does this mean the Galaxy Spica (GT-i5700) will not get the update as well?
I will never buy a Samsung product again in my life…
I have a BluRay player from them and the support was fucking garbage.
The Dream/G1 does have some hardware limitations, but the Galaxy should have the RAM/ROM space for 2.1 right??
Samsung does not support there shit!
I really hope that samsung does not end up dumping my Moment after the 2.1 update. i came from a previous samsung phone that was also tossed to the side and forgotten about prematurely despite all the hype around it during its release…… that samsung instinct became a worthless paper weight less than a year after its release
Samsung is like sprint in a way, they make good quality products but they provide bad customer care and don’t take care of their investments. I cant say this about their TV’s and such, but I think I’m done buying their phones.
Android 1.6 out for Galaxy now :)
It’s better than nothing!
ALL THIS CRAZYNESS IS FALSE!!!!!!!!!!!
I HAVE IN MY HANDS THE SAMSUNG GALAXY i7500 with os2.1!
Hi all, well all the fallowers my experience was really bad with samsung galaxy. No file transfer wits Btooth. Very bad web browser and even worst keypad. All these things is so bad in device like which so expensive. I use so many nokia’s before and apple’s iphone too. But according to me google’s android very very confusing platform. They have no idea what would be develop in this platform. They just mix up all the things and got nothing output. I like symbian os very much even now i just love coz i use iphone and android and in symbian os there is no limitation to do things. You can easily download any thing on the web directly in device whatever its songs or app. In android i cant download any thing from web and in iphone too. So whatever so much companies told there os are best or very up to date blah blah. But symbian os is just awsome in many term. And now symbian3 is ready to launch in market. Waiting for nokia N8. And bye bye all other platforms when this beautiful device in my hand. Bye all tc. Cheers.
Hi, I’ve decided to sell my Galaxy i7500. I will never buy any Samsung equipment.