As commenter The Samsung Secret tells it on XDA developers, there are a few kinds of updates for phones. Namely critical, maintenance and feature updates. Phonemakers develop and release them, based on a contract they sign with a carrier. Critical updates, resolving a crazy bug are provided to carriers from phonemakers for free; maintenance updates, the routine ones, “have some maintenance fee associated with them”; and finally, according to their account, feature updates, which add new things, “are usually costly”.
According to him (or her!), Samsung considers major Android updates to be a feature update, so it wants to charge carriers for those updates. (Unlike other major Android phonemakers, who this person says do not charge for Android updates. And indeed, we verified with a major Android phonemaker that they don’t charge carriers for big Android releases, so this is not routine.) Anyway, according to this person, carriers don’t want to pay for these updates. Or as they put it, “all US carriers have decided to refuse to pay for the Android 2.2 update, in hopes that the devaluation of the Galaxy S line will cause Samsung to drop their fees and give the update to the carriers”.
We’ve reached out to some carriers, along with Samsung for some comment on the allegations, but haven’t heard anything as of press time. If they have to something to add, we’ll update. Whatever the case maybe, one thing’s certainly true: The update to Android 2.2 hasn’t arrived, and some vocal portion of Galaxy owners are beginning to get antsy.
(Feel free to make your own comments about the irony of Samsung making the Nexus S, the only device running the latest, best version of Android.) [XDA developers]
Mig
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 10:03 AMI have updated a while ago to Android 2.2, am with Optus in Australia, you may want to specify in your article which carrier in Australia is affected by the inability to update to Android 2.2. Everyone i know with Optus has been able to updateto 2.2.
klaw
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 10:32 AM@Mig – I believe this article refers to US carriers in particular, who each have a carrier-customised version of the SGS in their lineups. ie Captivate for AT&T, Vibrant for T-Mobile etc.
Samsung and the carriers are basically playing chicken with the carriers and waiting to see who flinches first.
Samsung is asking for a fat fee to update each of the devices, and is happy to see customers get irate and start complaining to their carrier.
The carriers think they should get the updates for free (or at least for cheap) and are pointing the finger at Samsung as the cause of the delays.
Personally, I think Samsung should just release a slightly modified version of the Nexus S ROM to the public for free, and screw over the carriers while basking in the adulation of their users. It’s about time somebody stood up to the carriers.
Dylan Griffiths
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 5:06 PMI have a Telstra Galaxy S (Using an Optus SIM) and I can’t update it without some fancy non-carrier ROM manipulation. Optus users are the lucky ones.
nick
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 5:47 PMDont’t they mean an update for 2.2 as in something along the lines of 2.2.1. Not just updating to 2.2. Regardless, the point of them dragging their feet still stands.
kiwited
Wednesday, January 19, 2011 at 8:17 PMAnd while Galaxy S owners wait for Froyo, they see iPhone updates are regular and free.
Apple must love watching this!