Is Samsung purposefully holding off on a Froyo update?

January 13, 2011 By Molly McHugh

Samsung is being accused of holding out on its users, and the company is firing back.

In all of the hype surrounding the launch of the Samsung Vibrant Plus, there are apparently some shady things going on at Samsung coming to light. According to AndroidSpin, a T-Mobile insider is making a few lofty claims.

“Some disturbing things have happened the last week or so concerning our Vibrant. Samsung has not allowed us to push the update OTA for 2.2 because they feel it will decrease the value of the upcoming Vibrant 4G+. While from a marketing aspect I totally understand, as the Vibrant 4G is what the original Vibrant should have been in the first place. But to shun off and bold face lie to customers is not what T-Mobile is about.” The source later corrected his statement to say that the Vibrant Plus will not actually be 4G.

We also saw today that Samsung received only an average rating when it comes to software upgrades, and the Galaxy S has been waiting and waiting and waiting for an Android update, much to users’ chagrin.

Samsung reached out to CNET to respond to the accusations. “Samsung feels it is important to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available only after we feel that we can give the millions of US Galaxy S owners a simple and reliable upgrade experience. Due to the complexity and unique functionality of each Galaxy S device, we are performing additional testing and are working to make the Android 2.2/Froyo upgrade available to all US Galaxy S owners, including the Samsung Vibrant, as soon as possible.”

This probably isn’t enough to pacify those millions of Galaxy S owners who are beyond ready for an OTA upgrade. And the idea that Froyo is being kept from them for the simple purpose of making the Vibrant Plus look even shinier probably doesn’t help.

Showing 3 comments

cdelune at 11:23pm 17th January 2011 I think Google had better be prepared for Android phones taking a serious dive in popularity if they are unable to persuade manufacturers and phone companies to agree on pushing updates in a timely manner. iPhones from two companies now, and all iPhone users get the updates as they become available. I'm not tech-savvy enough to root my phone, which is one way to sidestep the long waits for updates, nor wealthy enough to buy a new phone instead of getting my existing phone updated, so I'm stuck with a 2-year contract and an outdated and laggy phone with lousy GPS, horrible battery life, no support for Flash or Enterprise and a complete waste of the money I paid for it in anticipation of getting 2.2 very soon after the purchase. I hope the class action suit against Samsung/T-Mobile slaps them silly and gets them to wake up, otherwise hundreds of thousands of customers are going to be running away as fast as they can!
cdelune at 11:22pm 17th January 2011 Samsung is full of BS! Galaxy S phones all over Europe have received the 2.2 upgrade. It was announced last May and they knew what they were getting into with all the different phone models and have had plenty of time to get the upgrade ready. If xda developers can figure out competent upgrades with far fewer resources in far less time, this is simply not an acceptable (or credible) excuse! I doubt I'm alone in thinking that I will not got another Samsung phone--HTC and Motorola have been much more timely with their upgrades (I was literally holding my friend's Droid X a few weeks ago when the Froyo upgrade arrived on it!) I'm also not convinced of T-Mobile's sincerity at being not culpable at all in holding back on the update--I received all sorts of promises about Froyo back when I bought the phone, and now we are hearing a variety of excuses, rather than a clear and consistent (and credible) statement.
Bizmodiz at 1:43pm 17th January 2011 You would think that samsung would have worked very closely with google to prepare their premier phones for at least the first upcoming update. It is irresponsible and inept. It appears Samsung was more concerned about just pushing their product than long term customer satisfaction. Even if that's not the case they should be working very hard to prevent customer shed. These kind of hiccups do cause folks to lose confidence. Excuses are no excuse.