So after waiting and waiting and patiently waiting, and then getting fed up with waiting, I downloaded Odin and JCE and got myself all set to upgrade "unofficially". Then I read about lost APN settings, random reboots, bricked devices and voided warranties and chickened out. Rather than sit idly by though I thought I'd check out what T-Mobile (I'm in the UK) and Samsung had to say about it.
T-Mobile online help was useless. To be fair, they phoned in response to my email within five minutes, but explained that I should upgrade my phone by downloading 2.1 from AndroidMarket.com! A nonsense answer that I chose to ignore. The Twitter guys were much better (@TmobileUKhelp). "...we are awaiting confirmation... we will tweet and post on our forums
T-Mobile Discussions - Discussions - UK Forums as soon as we hear." I'm not sure that they'll hear anything before we do, but if anybody's worth asking, they seem to be the ones who have some idea of what I'm talking about.
I've emailed Samsung three times.
First answer: "Please be advised that currently there is not an update available for the Samsung Android handsets to 1.6, 2.0 or 2.1 released in the UK.
"We do not have further information about future upgrades; however please refer to our website,
www.uk.samsungmobile.com for further updates on this issue"
Second answer: "With regard to your enquiry, although some versions of the i5700 have
Android OS v2.1, these units are the Eclair variant - in the UK, we have the Cupcake variant, which is running OS v1.5.
"The best place to find out about updates available in the UK would be via the
Samsung Mobile - Home website or by calling us. Alternatively, as these units are on T-Mobile, you may be able to obtain information from them.
"At this moment, we do not have a date for any updated version of the OS from v1.5."
Both, IMHO, pretty poor answers too. We all know there's no such thing as a Cupcake variant and I'm sure that Samsung
does, in fact, have more information about future upgrades.
My latest question asks whether acquiring the JCE firmware and flashing with Odin is considered official. I'm pretty sure that I know what the answer will be, but I'm trying to elicit a meaningful response now that the official upgrade is available in ROI as well as France, Germany, Finland and Norway. Are there any other countries that anyone is aware of?
I'll let you know if and when they respond.