2.2 Froyo for the Captivate Discussion

[mttfrog13]

I'm running the Cognition 2.2 beta. Flash isn't really all that great.

yep, there's a reason why apple and m$ are keeping flash off their phones. Firstly phones need to be a bit faster than they are right now to perform better. Secondly its opened a whole new security issue for android. They are already rolling out security updates related to flash for android phones.

Flash 10.1 Suffering Yet Another Security Exploit, Adobe Issuing Update November 9th | Android Phone Fans

Droid Incredible Maintenance Upgrade on its way Starting Nov. 8th | Android Phone Fans

Anyway...who else feels that the upgrade process is getting little ridiculous when we are only just getting froyo when gingerbread is rumored to be released this month and officially before the end of the year?

 

[mttfrog13]

and oh wow people are so frsutrated with samsung...

hell yeah people are. We're just getting froyo and gingerbread is rumored to be released this month and will released definitely before the end of the year. At the rate we wont see gingerbread until late summer 2011 if at all.

 

[kid320]

I checked for an update this morning around 11am. It said there was one and didn't tell me what it was, but it downloaded and asked me to install. I am guessing this is either Froyo or a GPS fix?

I attempted to install it. The phone rebooted and it went to a white/blue screen that said it was installing a software update. It took about 10 seconds, then said "update failed - restarting phone"

The phone rebooted, still with 2.1. When I go in to check for updates, I get a message that says "No Firmware." So, I am not even able to check for updates anymore.

Not sure why the update failed... perhaps because I am rooted? Also not sure what the "no firmware" message means.

Hopefully, other people will get this notification when they force check for an update.

 

[bill.g]

Well by next year I will have another phone and another company not living up to its promises.

 

[s.m.knipe]

I presume the Froyo 2.2 will only be for Captivate users who suffer with Windows.

Mabye even for people who have a Mac.

But probably not for people who use Ubuntu.

That is very true, and I have been politely (albeit mildly angrily) in discussion with both the Samsung Galaxy S service twitter team, and the ATT Customer Care twitter team about this. The Samsung team were/are by far the most helpful, they acknowledged how this could be a problem, and said they would pass the information on to the development team for producing at least a Mac version. I pointed out how I cannot get Kies to run properly even in a virtual machine running Vista (all I had access to) in Ubuntu, or in WINE, and that the only way to ensure an unbiased and non-discriminatory update is via OTA. The Samsung rep (she signs off as ^Sab, I think her name is Sabrina though) agreed and said that while a possibility (OTA), she thinks it will have to be via Kies and she would pass along that information to whatever team handles these things (I told her to make sure that the word discrimination was bolded and underlined and sent to the legal team), and I thanked her for her help and at least the acknowledgement of the potentiality of an issue.
Now for ATT... I sent the same message to @ATTCustomerCare, and was replied back by @ATTEmilia who said to follow her back (she had followed me) and send her a DM and she would look into the issue. This was back at the time of the 2.1 minor update by the way. She has yet to even acknowledge what I sent or the issue, so at first I thought maybe the DM did not go through (I was sending it from the Twitter client on my Captivate), and resent it a couple of times, and sent it to a dummy account I set up to test it. The dummy account received it just fine, so it appears AT&T is stone-walling this issue.
So yes @DannyB, it appears that Ubuntu/Linux users will be left out, unless the US carriers surprise me and work out a way for an OTA. (The issue with the OTA that I heard-from Beards on the SGS I9000 forum- was that over the next couple of updates Samsung is going to try to address the I/O lag by altering something with the RFS filesystem. I shouldn't think that an update to do so would require Kies, but I think they want it to so that there is a method to back everything up just in case- although the US version "Kies Mini" doesn't offer that option. All they need to do for the OTA update would be to write and package with the update a vanishing bootloader that will run a series of scripts backing everything up the SD card, converting the RFS to EXT4 or whatever, re-writing the stuff back, and then vanishing by deleting itself or whatever...)

 

[DannyB]

Now for ATT... . . . . so it appears AT&T is stone-walling this issue.

This is AT&T. So it should not be surprising.

over the next couple of updates Samsung is going to try to address the I/O lag by altering something with the RFS filesystem.

They should just abandon ******ed File System (RFS) and go with Ext4.

All they need to do for the OTA update would be to write and package with the update a vanishing bootloader that will run a series of scripts backing everything up the SD card, converting the RFS to EXT4 or whatever, re-writing the stuff back, and then vanishing by deleting itself or whatever...)

That sounds like a plan. But there's an awful lot that could go wrong with it in the fields with many users. What if they don't have an SD card? What if it flakes out after the backup/delete but before the restore? Etc.

Since Google does build a binary app that runs on all major platforms (Chrome browser) there is one thing they could do. Build in infrastructure to Chrome to access USB. Write either a browser extension, or maybe even just a webpage (that only works on Chrome browsers) that can manage your phone, including making backups.

So far, I do everything I want to do, including installing off market apps just fine using adb.

 

[s.m.knipe]

That sounds like a plan. But there's an awful lot that could go wrong with it in the fields with many users. What if they don't have an SD card? What if it flakes out after the backup/delete but before the restore? Etc.

Yeah I agree that it could be flaky, but I was thinking it could just use the pre-installed internal SD that all the phones have. But you are right, something could interrupt the process, but the worst case scenario would be that it would basically be a factory reset (just write the bootloader to not panic if one of the restore scripts doesn't return a value).

Since Google does build a binary app that runs on all major platforms (Chrome browser) there is one thing they could do. Build in infrastructure to Chrome to access USB. Write either a browser extension, or maybe even just a webpage (that only works on Chrome browsers) that can manage your phone, including making backups.

So far, I do everything I want to do, including installing off market apps just fine using adb.

I also agree that Chrome (with extensions) could be hugely powerful for an Android ecosystem, a sort of "cloud-management kiosk" kind of place... I think this is the future for Android (possibly even closer than we think, we still have yet to see exactly what cloud-based goodies Gingerbread will see). Consider the chrome-to-phone extension/app that is available on 2.2+ phones, it is simply pushing a webpage/link/url to the phone from a Chrome or Firefox browser without a connection other than the cloud. Theoretically, we could push updates to our phones from this "kiosk" or "hub" because OTA updates are really just links to the files (the bootloader and depackager/installer are already on the phone) to be unpackaged and installed...

And yes, ADB is awesome, imagine a wireless ADB though, and how cool yet dangerous that would be... I love sitting and thinking about stuff like this

 

[shark974]

Well by next year I will have another phone and another company not living up to its promises.

You should try North Korea, I hear they dont have any companies.

They also make an average of $1 a month. At least you wont have to worry about those evil corporations screwing you over on your smartphone. There aren't any.

 

[Frisco]

You should try North Korea, I hear they dont have any companies.

They also make an average of $1 a month. At least you wont have to worry about those evil corporations screwing you over on your smartphone. There aren't any.

^^^^^ +1

 

[spinedoc]

I'm running the Cognition 2.2 beta. Flash isn't really all that great.

Running Froyo on my Captivate and Flash runs quite awesomely. I use it quite a bit too.

 

[DannyB]

And yes, ADB is awesome, imagine a wireless ADB though, and how cool yet dangerous that would be... I love sitting and thinking about stuff like this

The biggest problem I see with that is AT&T.

Suppose you want to backup 48 GB of stuff off your phone. (16 internal + 32 SCHD micro card)

Over a USB connection you could do it. Over the air, not so much.

Or, I want to plop a 4 GB video onto my phone. Not gonna happen over the air.

By building binary chrome browser for different platforms, they can put functionality into it, such as USB api's to JavaScript, such that all sorts of cool phone management (and all sorts of other things) could be written as chrome extensions or even just web pages.

 

[MassacrMan]

I am so confused, Samsung UK says that all people will have froyo by the end of November. This is referring to Europe only yes?

So where is the information about a United States release, this is getting ridiculously aggravating and rather confusing as I don't know what news post is referring to what. Someone please in a single concise post sum up what is going on with a 2.2 release in the United States.

 

[rubiconjp]

galaxySsupport, one of Samsung USA's official Twitter accounts, said that in a post a few weeks ago that samsungukmobile only speaks for Samsung UK. When pressed for a US date for 2.2, galaxySsupport said that they will announce the date for US when it is available.

So... still no announcement so far, and everyone is still in the dark.

 

[AKA_Rizzo]

Get used to Samsung suking a lot.

They're a real "Hype and drop" kind of company.

I learned this with my eternity over the last two years.

Update is "Samsung speak" for " Shh.. here's a cookie...Dinner is almost ready"

And we all starved to death.

 

[Mechromancer]

Does Froyo Fix the DHCP Netmask issue on the Galaxy S? Does it actually take the DHCP info from DNS and populate netmask as 255.255.255.0 instead of 255.0.0.0 on some networks? THIS IS ALL I WANT OUT OF FROYO! I want to finally be able to connect to my workplace's damn Wi-Fi. I take a lot of crap from my Motorola Droid and iPhone coworkers because of this enormous issue with the Galaxy S.

More info on this here:
http://androidforums.com/captivate-support-troubleshooting/142397-odd-netmask-issues-wifi.html

And here:
Samsung Captivate WiFi DHCP netmask issue - AT&T Community

 

[shark974]

Well, it's not the end of your life if you have to wait a month for a minor update to a stupid phone, an update 99% of it's owners probably dont even know exists as normal people have no idea of the technical details of their phone.

I think the bitter complainers here are far, far, far worse than Samsung is. It's kind of like bad airline service, or email spam back in the day. The people complaining about it are far worse and more annoying than the actual problem.

At least we're getting 2.2. A true example of bad support would be if we weren't getting 2.2 at all.

Also, I saw a chart on Android Central recently, and about the same percent of Android phones are on 2.2 as are still on 2.1 (it was something like 40% for each) So that tells me Samsung isn't even an outlier here. Just as many people dont have 2.2 yet as do have it, across all manufacturers.

Also, I dont think it's even Samsung here, could be AT&T and others too.

 

[chadbobb]

Well, it's not the end of your life if you have to wait a month for a minor update to a stupid phone, an update 99% of it's owners probably dont even know exists as normal people have no idea of the technical details of their phone.

I think the bitter complainers here are far, far, far worse than Samsung is. It's kind of like bad airline service, or email spam back in the day. The people complaining about it are far worse and more annoying than the actual problem.

At least we're getting 2.2. A true example of bad support would be if we weren't getting 2.2 at all.

Also, I saw a chart on Android Central recently, and about the same percent of Android phones are on 2.2 as are still on 2.1 (it was something like 40% for each) So that tells me Samsung isn't even an outlier here. Just as many people dont have 2.2 yet as do have it, across all manufacturers.

Also, I dont think it's even Samsung here, could be AT&T and others too.

We as a people pay for a product and expect things to be done in a timely fashion. We pay at&t a monthly rate that is significantly higher than required. We purchase a phone for $200-$500.

Would you go into a restaurant and not be irritated with the staff if it took two hours to get your food? There is no difference here, except it happens to affect everyone who owns a galaxy s phone all at the same time, and instead of it being a group of restaurant workers, it is a corporation who has promised this update not once, not twice, but so far on three separate occasions and never living up in detail. Not answer questions from the masses.

Now of course things could be worse, but the only way for improvement is to always demand more, Not simply "deal with it"

 

[fldude99]

So where is it written that the captivate will definitely get 2.2? I'll believe it when it happens

 

[northernale1]

anyone who wants to try some real junk and shit customer service,, slide on over to the sony erricson camp,,,

the captivate is so smooth on 2.1 other then flash what is 2.2 going to give you??

 

[TDQuiksilver]

anyone who wants to try some real junk and shit customer service,, slide on over to the sony erricson camp,,,

the captivate is so smooth on 2.1 other then flash what is 2.2 going to give you??

Access to updated versions of Gmail, YouTube, etc. Improvements with Bluetooth.

There are plenty more...

 

[Mechromancer]

Have none of you delved into this issue? I know a lot of you have had trouble with some DHCP networks. This is a worldwide known Galaxy S issue. Does Froyo help?

 

[Endoran]

I have never had a wifi problem. I know I have heard of this problem before; I would go down to xda and ask them, they are the experts. I guarantee one of the developers' roms has fixed this issue and will surely fix it again on a new rom based on the official froyo (after it is released of course). If not, tell them and they will fix it.

 

[Endoran]

So where is it written that the captivate will definitely get 2.2? I'll believe it when it happens

It has been written on SAMSUNG'S home webpage describing the Captivates' features since before launch. It never said WHEN but definitely explicitly said it would/will.


@shark974 - Americans bitch and complain more about the government than any and all corporations. There's whole channels that basically only cover political crap. I'm fairly certain Americans are displeased with their government just as much if not more than corporations. I'm also fairly certain that disliking large, faceless, cold-hearted, greedy, and immoral conglomerates is universal and crosses all ethnic and national boundaries. If we had to be "trained" to feel bitterness towards them then the companies have already won. Also, how many of those phones on android central are state-of-the-art? All the phones that are part of the Galaxy S cohort have froyo already. Taken in this light Samsung is the outlier. And everybody likes updates. Even the ones that aren't expecting an update. All the people that educated themselves before buying this phone already knew what kind of update support to expect from Samsung. They definitely aren't disappointing. That doesn't mean we're going to roll over. Doesn't mean they want froyo any less or keep the anticipation at bay. What you read and hear is just frustration for an update that is really, by industry standards, way overdue (this phone could have and should have been released with froyo). Not to mention the expected poor samsung customer service. What's the last official SamsungUS remark regarding froyo except to basically say "we don't know"? I think Americans aren't bitter enough, if they were companies like Samsung would go under or learn new tricks.

 

[louvass]

Does anyone care that this phone can still not handle true BT voice dialing, 4 years ago my Razor did that simple function ! But I love my Cap.

 

[fldude99]

^^^yea that is pretty limiting. Fortunately vlingo works pretty fair-but you still have to talk into the dam phone