A couple of weeks ago, Vodafone published information pertaining to the cancelled release of Android 4.3 for the Samsung Galaxy Nexus. This made people sad, so today they’ve un-cancelled it!
In a post on the Vodafone Community site today, Vodafone says:
Samsung and Google got together and decided that, in the best interest of its customers (that’d be you lot), they’d release the update anyway.
The update will begin rolling out to Vodafone Galaxy Nexus users from April 8 – only a week away now. This is obviously great news for users who are still snuggling up to their Galaxy Nexus at night – getting a software upgrade is second only to getting a new phone.
According to the Vodafone Support page, the update rolls out over 6 days to 5%, 5%, 10% , 30%, 60% and then 100% of phones. There’s no change between day 1 and day 3 to allow them to react in the unlikely event that the update breaks phones.
Other carriers
We’ve been enquiring as to the status of this update with other carriers as well.
Telstra says it was approved but nobody seems to have received the update on their phones and it now seems to have disappeared from their software updates page.
Optus never actually answered our queries (thanks guys), but it seems their software updates page was updated last week to reflect a similar rollout schedule to Vodafone (early/mid-April).
KitKat and beyond
Remember that while your Galaxy Nexus is finally getting Android 4.3, it’s unlikely to see an official KitKat release – not even Google supports it – so for any future updates you’ll probably want to install CyanogenMod using our guide.
Are you still running carrier-supplied software on your Galaxy Nexus or have you modded your phone to stay up to date? Tell us in the comments.
I bought a Galaxy Nexus on Vodafone because I bought into the stock android and ‘fast updates’ BS that was spouted out Android fans. ‘Oh Nexus devices get updates immediately blah blah blah’, what a load of garbage. I don’t give a crap that it’s up to Samsung to push the update to the carrier, THAT SHOULD HAVE BEEN ORGANISED BY GOOGLE/SAMSUNG. If that’s what they’re advertising with the Nexus phones, then it’s their responsibility to fulfill that promise. As a consumer it’s cannot be expected that I dig deep, searching the internet to find out that takju/yakju nonsense and… Read more »
No point blaming Google, Android or Samsung here. Jelly Bean for the Galaxy Next has been available for well over 6 months. It’s up to Vodafone to push it.
And besides, from your complaining, it sounds like you’re not really the target market for a Nexus phone anyway – they’re aimed at developers and those who like to tinker with their phones, rather than those who want all the latest and greatest gadgets.
Completely wrong. Sounds like you’re implying that it’s Voda’s responsibility to grab the AOSP source and program the rom themselves to push out. Samsung (were supposed to) develop the Galaxy Nexus rom for Vodafone. They never ended up developing one for the GNexus to submit to Vodafone. It’s not like they submitted the rom to Voda and Voda just sat on it for 6 months and didn’t do anything. There was no software build for Vodafone to push out because Samsung never submitted one. So fault goes to Samsung there. Fault also goes to Google for not having an organised,… Read more »
Yeah so… you bought a phone from a carrier that controls the updates. Yet… it’s Google and Samsung’s fault?
My nexus device has got every update within a day of it being released to the wild. Because I actually bought a Nexus device from Google. If you buy it from Google, Google updates it. If you buy it from Vodafone, you rely on Vodafone for the update.
It pretty much is Samsung’s fault though. They never supplied the updates to the Australian carriers on time. The device clearly wasn’t a priority for them.
What do you want Vodafone to do? Magic up the update from thin air?
What on earth are you talking about? Vodafone don’t make Android roms. Vodafone don’t do anything except accept a rom submission from an OEM, test it, and then release it to consumers. The problem was Samsung never developed the rom to send to Vodafone for testing/release. How is that anyone else’s fault but Samsung’s and Google’s? Google made the roms for some Galaxy Nexus phones to release, Google then relied on Samsung to develop roms for some Galaxy Nexus models to release. Fault goes to both companies for not having a consistent update strategy and a division for GNexus consumers.… Read more »