Android users of the Samsung Captivate on AT&T are finally getting to update their phones to the 2.2 version of the Android OS. There have been widespread complaints about lagging operating system updates.
Mac Users Left Out with Captivate
Captivate owners who use a Mac rather than a Windows computer can’t update their phones yet because 2.2 operating system update is not being delivered wirelessly over the air by AT&T. Instead, users only install it by using a USB cable to connect their phones to a computer running Samsung’s Kies Mini software, which only works on PCs.
Other users of HTC Droid Incredible, for example, have reported that connecting the phone as a USB device does not work on a Mac, while it does work on a PC. Motorola’s Droid connect to a Mac without trouble.
Sprint started releasing 2.2 (Froyo) and then abruptly halted the update Thursday for its Galaxy S phone, the Epic 4G. According to Boy Genius Report, owners of phones that received the update have been reporting problems related to data connectivity, as well as SD card problems when attempting to access photos or music.
Users of other phones that were updated to Froyo 2.2 have also reported freezes, loss of contacts, inability to unlock the phone with a swipe (without taking out the battery and rebooting), and a frequently crashing SMS text program. The text messaging also acts quirky. Without actually crashing, using the keyboard results in no display of characters until the user clicks in the actual area where the characters were typed for the text message. In other words, clicking the keyboard creates invisible sentences. But when the area where the sentences are displayed, whole sentences suddenly appear.
Also, on occasions, when the text message SEND button is hit, nothing happens. If a user repeatedly hits the SEND button (with no feedback), eventually multiple messages are sent. For example, if a user hits the SEND button 10 times because there was no user feedback that a message was sent, then the recipient eventually gets 10 copies of the same message when the software finally decides to send the message.
Released and planned Android OS versions …
2.0/2.1 (Eclair), which revamped the user interface and introduced HTML5 and Exchange ActiveSync 2.5 support
2.2 (Froyo), which introduced speed improvements with JIT optimization and the Chrome V8 JavaScript engine, and added Wi-Fi hotspot tethering and Adobe Flash support
2.3 (Gingerbread), which refined the user interface, improved the soft keyboard and copy/paste features, and added support for Near Field Communication
3.0 (Honeycomb), a tablet-oriented release which supports larger screen devices and introduces many new user interface features, and supports multicore processors and hardware acceleration for graphics. The Honeycomb SDK has been released and the first device featuring this version, the Motorola Xoom tablet, is scheduled for release in the first quarter of 2011.
Upcoming versions of Android are:
2.4 (Gingerbread), an update to 2.3, anticipated to be released in April 2011.
Ice-cream sandwich, a combination of 2.3 Gingerbread and 3.0 Honeycomb into a “cohesive whole”, with a possible release in mid-2011