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There’s some great news out today for those who plan to nurse Samsung’s excellent Galaxy S II through another year of use, thanks to Samsung posting details about an imminent update to Android 4.1 for the popular phone.
You’ll lose 1GB of storage space due to memory partition changes, in return seeing a smoother user experience, some “improved usability” features, Google+ and some other new Google apps pre-loaded, plus Samsung’s Smart Stay tool to keep the display powered on when the front-facing camera senses you looking at it.
The update will only be made available through Samsung’s KIES desktop updating tool, as we’d imagine company execs couldn’t face the thought of organising another series of global over-the-air updates through the many hundreds of mobile networks out there.
To unlock more Android news, tips, and features, check out Samsung’s Your Mobile Life over here.
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Now if only they could spell colour correctly
This is a bit of a noob question, and I’m embarrassed to ask but presumably this will wipe the phone back to factory and lose all settings, SMS, call logs etc?
No.
Shouldn’t do, the update from 2.3 to 4.0 kept all my messages, settings etc. intact. Also you can (should) backup all of that stuff to your PC using KIES before you update, just in case.
Great, thanks guys. I’ve always been a bit wary of out-of-the-box solutions and I don’t have the time to go the Titanium Backup route if I can help it.
it might not, but with a change to the system drive partition from 2GB to 3GB it will likely have to wipe the whole thing, so you would loose any personal files or settings initially until they are restored via kies or a backup app of your choice (I am quite partial to Titanium backup, but My Backup Pro is pretty good too)
No mention of Google Now on the source link – I was under the impression it’s a built in JellyBean feature – may be wrong though might be just nexus devices? It doesn’t seem to be available on the play store either.
No i also have it on my S3 so it will be on the S2 as well im sure.
Cool thanks for clarification
Thats pretty good support from Samsung. This is what HTC need to do, they stop offering software upgrades much too quickly
Totally agree htcs biggest problem is lack of updates and communication with its customers that’s why they are losing customers their hardware is fine just to many people dissalusioned with their lack of support especially for flagship handsets
Says I’m already up to date on Keiss…anyone know when this will be available?
if it’s anything like 4.0 it’ll be about a month before it hits
hmm…. hardly “an imminent update to Android 4.1″
Cheers Giz, let us know when it lands could you?
Any reason why they are about to ‘update’ the SII to a version of Android that is not 4.2? Essentially the software will still be outdated, just less outdated than before.