Samsung Galaxy Nexus by Vodafone Australia to Join Telstra-Issued Galaxy Note 2 in Updating Directly to Jelly Bean 4.3
Jelly Bean 4.3 is officially out, via the new Nexus 7 release, but not every Android gadget owners will get a quick taste of what the upgraded Google mobile OS is all about.
Prime examples are Aussie users of the Galaxy Note 2, made by Samsung and distributed locally by Telstra, and the Galaxy Nexus, also from the South Korean tech giant and picked by Vodafone.
The two Android smartphones, still on Jelly Bean 4.1, will not jump to 4.2 and instead climb the ladder leading directly to the latest Jelly Bean build, Gotta Be Mobile said in a report. This should be a piece of good news but not exactly.
The catch is it may take an eternity before the new Jelly Bean flavour is get tasted by Aussie owners of the Note 2 and the Galaxy Nexus, which is normally the case for circulating handsets course through network carriers.
The usual route for the fragmented Android update process is Nexus or Google edition handsets will get the latest patch first, then unlocked or international versions before the new version trickles down to devices that telcos like Telstra and Vodafone issued to subscribers.
While the Galaxy Nexus belongs to the first batch, it is likely that Jelly Bean firmware update will be dispatched via the Vodafone channel and will not come from Google or Samsung.
Judging from previous Android update models, Aussie versions of the Note 2 and the Galaxy Nexus will have to make to do with what they have before joining the Jelly Bean 4.3 circle. The earliest they can get the software should be Q4 2013, by which time Google would be prepping to unleash the Key Lime Pie, which analysts said should hit the update pipeline in December.
At around the same time, Samsung would have moved for the global premier of the quad-core powered Galaxy Note 3 and the likelihood is, it will have the latest Jelly Bean sweets right out of the box.
In such a situation, Note 2 owners would be facing a dilemma: Should they wait out for the 4.3 bump or get the Note 3 instead with the same Android build but with more powerful components plus larger Full HD Super AMOLED screen?