So it appears that U.S. Cellular and Cellular South are getting their own Galaxy S Variants, the Samsung Mesmerize and the Samsung Showcase respectively. These both appear (from the press releases I only glanced at) to be following the Vibrant/Fascinate sort of form-factor.
Great news and all, given that Samsung has already flogged over 5 million Galaxy S Phones at this point, but it makes me wonder.
Given that we've already got a buttload of SGS variants now, and given that this has severely fragmented at least the "tweaker" level of customization on this platform it makes me wonder whether or not Samsung is really up to the task here.
Think about it. Though it would seem that Samsung would be best served by having a base build to work with, and leave carrier customization to separate teams, given what we've seen across the already existing lines of SGS phones it's already apparent that the carrier teams seem to be leading the horse by the mouth here. More variants would seem to merely make this aspect of the situation worse.
I am beginning to believe that it's these additional device launches (including the japanese launch of the SGS) are probably what is holding up 2.1 fixes and 2.2 being released. Still, this isn't entirely the case, given that T-Mobile is apparently the only carrier left that hasn't pushed some sort of attempt at a maintenance update. T-Mobile's track record with Android is somewhat legendary here (in a bad way).
Keep in mind however that I'm just mentioning this in passing because it's in my nature to be curious about such things. I'm generally quite happy with my Vibrant. Mostly lag-free without a lag fix, good signal, decent battery life, and finally a GPS that works well enough that I don't care it's still not "fixed". No thanks to T-Mobile though..YMMV...
I agree that 2 more devices probably wont help things. At least not until all these galaxy s boards get merged.
Its just getting ridiculous with all these slightly different devices on seperate boards. I figured this would be posted on the I9000 forums first. That can be said about many topics regarding galaxy s phones but it requires a lot of searching to find info.
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Nexus one has been the darling of the developer community from the start. It has the most mods, the most roms and the most love from the android developers.
I was thinking if Samsung Galaxy will be able to change this because it is being rollerd out very aggressively in North America (I think Europe too). Every major carrier is getting some flavor of Galaxy S and I think it is going to show up in many consumer hands.
Samsung also made the source code open source (not sure what are the repercussions of that) and from what I've heard Samsung does not encrypt the bootloader like Motorola.
So, do you guys think Samsung Galaxy S could become a major roms/mods magnet and dethrone Nexus?
bluezz said:
Nexus one has been the darling of the developer community from the start. It has the most mods, the most roms and the most love from the android developers.
I was thinking if Samsung Galaxy will be able to change this because it is being rollerd out very aggressively in North America (I think Europe too). Every major carrier is getting some flavor of Galaxy S and I think it is going to show up in many consumer hands.
Samsung also made the source code open source (not sure what are the repercussions of that) and from what I've heard Samsung does not encrypt the bootloader like Motorola.
So, do you guys think Samsung Galaxy S could become a major roms/mods magnet and dethrone Nexus?
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Not likely, the nexus one is a Dev phone, thats what it was built for. Not likely the Galaxy S will see AS MANY devs as the nexus one has, but because it is so huge (every carrier has a version of the galaxy s) that it will still probably be popular.
Never.
Skinned phones don't get anywhere near the attention of stock Android phones.
It will take some effort for Samsung to earn people's trust that they won't just abandon the device like they've always done previously. That won't happen with just one device release. If a pattern develops, then perhaps. But even still, its not a developer phone, and that's a huge difference. But it may be very popular so we'll see.
Samsung has a shoddy record so far for supporting their Android devices, and devs don't take skinned phones as seriously as stock phones. I don't see Samsung taking over for a while. In fact, I don't see ANY phone in the pipeline that could be considered the spiritual successor to the Nexus One, and the Dream/Magic before it.
Motorola/Samsung may get the bulk sales and marketing budgets, but HTC is still the home of "real" Android.
+1 It doesn't look too good for Samsung catching up with HTC & the Nexus anytime soon.
Would the same rom work on the different version of the galaxy s or the dev have to code differently for each variant?
You'll get what you have with the G1.....A bunch of roms based off Cyanogen Mod Kanged with a theme and a few apps
So, just thinking about all this update news and Galaxy Tab news.
Samsung released the Galaxy S phone (now I know..) 3-4 months ago in UK. People had problems with GPS and other things. Samsung releases Galaxy S phones in the US with similar problems and samsung has yet to actually fix anything.
So my concern, I'm not really interested in buying a Galaxy Tab. But, If Samsung released phones that were glitchy and buggy (not that every other phone doesn't have some kind of issue at release), and have yet to correct these issues. What do you think they'll do with the Galaxy Tab? The same thing?
presence06 said:
So, just thinking about all this update news and Galaxy Tab news.
Samsung released the Galaxy S phone (now I know..) 3-4 months ago in UK. People had problems with GPS and other things. Samsung releases Galaxy S phones in the US with similar problems and samsung has yet to actually fix anything.
So my concern, I'm not really interested in buying a Galaxy Tab. But, If Samsung released phones that were glitchy and buggy (not that every other phone doesn't have some kind of issue at release), and have yet to correct these issues. What do you think they'll do with the Galaxy Tab? The same thing?
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i'm with you on that one, i was thinking about getting one tab, but, with all this issues that samsung is ignoring, i think i just hold on to my nomey
yes..no money from me unless they fix what I already paid for.
I paid full amount without contracts so I am very angry
Speaking purely from the perspective of a consumer (e.g., and not of one of a developer), I am very disappointed that Google Android updates don't flow (quickly) downstream. While I don't want to argue about where iOS is "better" than Android, Apple has repeatedly demonstrated their ability to push O/S updates out to their phone and tablets - and their ability to do so relatively quickly. This is different from Google's approach which leaves the O/S updates to the speed and discretion of each specific device manufacturer.
Given the non-nimble response Samsung has demonstrated with their "Flagship" Galaxy S line, I'm not very optimistic that they would perform any better with their Tablet.
Personally, I'm going to look at Apple, or at a different Android-based solution by a manufacturer who is committed to provided timely updates, patches, and fixes to their products.
ScratchSF said:
Speaking purely from the perspective of a consumer (e.g., and not of one of a developer), I am very disappointed that Google Android updates don't flow (quickly) downstream. While I don't want to argue about where iOS is "better" than Android, Apple has repeatedly demonstrated their ability to push O/S updates out to their phone and tablets - and their ability to do so relatively quickly. This is different from Google's approach which leaves the O/S updates to the speed and discretion of each specific device manufacturer.
Given the non-nimble response Samsung has demonstrated with their "Flagship" Galaxy S line, I'm not very optimistic that they would perform any better with their Tablet.
Personally, I'm going to look at Apple, or at a different Android-based solution by a manufacturer who is committed to provided timely updates, patches, and fixes to their products.
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I agree, Apple does an awesome job with pushing out updates. It's run through iTunes and all a user has to do is plug their phone into a computer/Mac with iTunes and there's the update.
Android is different though, I might be wrong in my procedure but I think it's close. Google released the source for the new Upgrade 2.2(or whatever update) then passes it to the Manufactures (Motorola, Samsung), they tweak it with their UI overlay and then pass it to their Carriers.
It's been said that Vanilla, or stock Android gets updates faster because there's no UI tweaks done to the OS version. Which has shown true. The nexus one has 2.2.1 now being pushed, while the G2 will come stock 2.2 and those two phones alone will probably see 2.2.x or possibly 3.0 before we we even see 2.2.1(if it's going to other phones).
Motorola has the Droid series and has done a decent job with pushing updates. They might not have the mass of phones that Sammy has sold, but it still shows who's "playing" for the Customer. Samsung has known about this issue with the GPS for months now and hasn't issued any kind of update to actually correct these issues. It just proves Samsung's negligence IMO. It's too bad, because outside of these issues the phone is excellent. But when a company doesn't stand behind their products, it just sucks for the end user.
Samsung just announced that they will not be releasing ICS on SGS (i9000), hence we can safely assume that they will not be doing so on SGS+ (i9001) either as it's a less popular (even though faster) model. The amount of RAM is similar and aparently that's one of the reasons why SGS is not getting it, so unless someone will be able to "cook" one of the sources or a port of some kind, we're bound to 2.3.X
Oh，What a shame!!
this belongs in general. remember this is only for developers, any discussion belongs to general.
I believe the SGS is more than capable of handling ICS...it's just Samsung being too reluctant to develop such a ROM for a phone that's not as popular anymore.
Either way, I'm sure unsatisfied SGS users will find a solution here at XDA
Well, there are ports of ICS for SGS already and they run fine. Point is Samsung's not willing to do it as they wouldn't be able (suposedly) run their own bloatware and touchwiz on them alongside ICS. From my point of view as a SGS+ user that's bull, but it's just something that makes me not wanna ever buy a Samsung device again in the future, and I suppose there's more people who'll think similar.
Well technically they can if they only released one Galaxy S model across the globe, but as they have to make ROMs that allow their (and different carriers' in the case of the US) bloatware to function properly. With variants such as the Captivate, Epic, Vibrant, i9000B, i9000M....they probably reckon it's too much work.
That is correct but all they really need to do now is release sources and I'm sure that there's plenty smart enough folks out there who can do their job for them and for free...
Not saying to troll. But posts like "If they dont port an official ICS, I'm not going to buy a Samsung device again", "shame on samsung", "samsung should loose a lot of customers" and any other random hating is just dumb. Honestly, you don't get anything posting such comments. I am a SGS owner too, but look at the facts, SGS is old. (over 2 years) get over it. Somone will release a good and fast and stable ICS custom rom, thats what most user would end up using anyway.
http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1410419
Why will development be more difficult and/or "lag behind" for the American GSIII?
I keep hearing that the American GSIII will be gimped when it comes to development for it, and I genuinely don't understand why. So, the simple question is, why?
I do not know much about how android development works, and my experience with installing ROMs is limited to Apex 1.2.1 on the Verizon Droid X, followed by an attempt at AOKP much later that resulted (likely due to unrelated circumstances) in a totally unusable screen (huge amount of tearing, shaking, scrolling). What I do know is that I plan on playing with many different ROMs for the GSIII. I'm sure I am not the only one on this boat of being unfamiliar with details of development, so I wanted to know why it will be difficult (if at all).
Is there official word that the bootloaders will be locked? Is there something essentially different about them that makes development harder? Is it because maybe the OTA updates are infrequent? Is it that getting properly working updated stock ROMs for the phones is difficult (resulting in devs having to wait longer before getting the base that they need)? Thanks for the insight!
Time will tell, it's all opinion and hearsay right now. My personal opinion, dev will be plenty, nothing to worry about.
I think it will be pretty good, each different variation of the GS and GS2 had devs working on it, since the US will essentially have on version, all those devs if the get a GS3 will be there working on one handset instead of 4 different ones
I personally think it will be fine...gs2...T-Mobile anyway had horrible dev support. The gs2 was an upragde yes but only by an inch...I would bet they sold a ton of them to first timers...most people didn't go from a gs1 to a gs2 because it just wasn't enough. This has a ton of buzz and I bet a ton of people will be pulling the trigger. Furthermore, having the same hardware in every us variant will definitely not hurt.
Sent from my SGH-T959 using XDA
different hardware=different drivers=different software=different codes
more people have the international version so it will has more development
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spanyam said:
I keep hearing that the American GSIII will be gimped when it comes to development for it, and I genuinely don't understand why. So, the simple question is, why?
I do not know much about how android development works, and my experience with installing ROMs is limited to Apex 1.2.1 on the Verizon Droid X, followed by an attempt at AOKP much later that resulted (likely due to unrelated circumstances) in a totally unusable screen (huge amount of tearing, shaking, scrolling). What I do know is that I plan on playing with many different ROMs for the GSIII. I'm sure I am not the only one on this boat of being unfamiliar with details of development, so I wanted to know why it will be difficult (if at all).
Is there official word that the bootloaders will be locked? Is there something essentially different about them that makes development harder? Is it because maybe the OTA updates are infrequent? Is it that getting properly working updated stock ROMs for the phones is difficult (resulting in devs having to wait longer before getting the base that they need)? Thanks for the insight!
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Think about it... The US takes up a small amount of the population.
Maybe if the roms are switchable from carrier to carrier, Japan, Korea, Canada and all US carriers then you will have a lot of people with the same phones and therefore development will have a large user base. The problem is in the past, the States, Japan and Korean version have all been quite different, Vibrant, Fascinate, Captivate, Epic, etc. Then Skyrocket, SGS2 with exynos, SGS2 with S3, etc. It was hard to unite these platforms together.
But as of right now, 9 million pre-orders are the international version only. No doubt those 9 million will sell out and that is already a large user base.
916x10 said:
Time will tell, it's all opinion and hearsay right now. My personal opinion, dev will be plenty, nothing to worry about.
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+1 How many of the same roms do you need? There will be plenty of support for this version. Give me our dev support and 2gb of ram, and I'm a happy camper.
Sent from my HTC One X using Tapatalk 2
I don't mean to be rude in any way but is it me or is development very slow that it reached a crawl in the i9500 sections?
I'm up to date with cm progress and know how much has been achieved (very thankful for the awesome dev work with the latest fixes of cam and mic) asides from that I hardly see any in the ROM/kernel department.
Currently running wanam 2.0 with latest Perseus
I think alot of devs don't really care for the exynos processors because of them being closed source or something like that
Essentially, Samsung continue to do things (the whole Knox thing as a recent example; there are numerous others since the Galaxy line of phones began) that are absolutely unfriendly to non-Samsung development & firmware.
Put yourself in a developer's shoes - would you rather develop for the I95x series or develop for a phone made by a manufacturer who doesn't continually put up roadblocks to using non-manufacturer firmware on a device ?
I really feel so angry that Samsung did this with I9500. They could have made just one version don't know why they choose otherwise.
Sent from my GT-I9500
Two reasons:-
A) The corporate sector demanded they 'secure' their phones if they wanted to increases sales to said sector. Call it a sensible business decision on that score.
B) I suspect they also got a bit tired of people dudding them over warranty claims. You know the ones where some n00b bricks their phone flashing non-stock firmware (for a completely different device) yet ends up blagging a warranty fix because Samsung don't have the time to investigate exactly what caused the NAND to be messed up beyond all recognition (so they simply go 'meh' & replace the motherboard for free). What they've done recently should all but put an end to that sort of thing (unless a workaround is figured out).
What some people on XDA fail to understand is people like us are a tiny proportion of Samsung's sales. They simply couldn't give a **** what we think or want to a large degree. As far as they're concerned as long as the other 98% of their customers are happy, it's all good.
Edit - Also, I think you'll find this whole thing has been driven by Samsung US, because the whole enterprise mobile security thing has been 'flavour of the month' there for the past 18 mths. US companies (both tech/non-tech) seem a bit obsessed with the whole thing.
Its a great phone with great potential but they just had to do something like that, unlike HTC and how they didn't forget about devs.
Devs do its for fun or whatever makes them happy and I'm sure a lot of them out there like a challenge but Sammy is pushing it this time...
I'm seriously thinking about selling my i9500 for either an HTC or a SE... Lg is getting there but their g2 with low builtin mem and without an external card is a deal breaker
I really love both HTC one and s4.I really don't feel the need to root HTC one is so good of a phone.
Sent from my HTC One
Development is still very fast in S2 and S3 sections where international versions are on one board but in the case of S4 and note 3, Samsung divids the world in 2 parts, exynos octa and snapdragon. Now chainfire is having 19505 and wanam 19500. So there is less movement in this section
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