Samsung Galaxy S II Skyrocket ICS Issue

[NicciVonDame]

Hello everyone!!!

This is my first post on this website. My question is, why isn't ICS the same on my phone as it is on the Nexus S? Thanks so much!

Nicci

[Ads]

Android.net is the premier Android Forum on the internet.

[NicciVonDame]

*Yawns*

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[furbearingmammal]

Sorry, I didn't see your post until just now. Welcome to the site!

The issue at hand is the customization various OEMs place on the software to differentiate the individual phones that, usually, have very similar hardware specs. These customizations are often referred to as skins because the OEM is placing their choice of "flavors" over the vanilla Android code. For Smasung the skin is called TouchWiz, for Motorola it's MotoBlur (not-so-affectionately called Blur or MotoBloat -- or worse -- by its users), and for HTC it's HTC Sense. These skins provide functionality that usually would require a 3rd-party app (Facebook or Twitter, for example), and usually at a level that isn't possible even with said 3rd-party app. Unfortunately, these skins also often monitor and report things that you, as the user, are unaware of, as well as often negatively-impacting the performance of the device in question. Please note, these things are not universal, just very common.

At this point I wish to mention the fact that most custom firmwares for these phones revert to a more vanilla-like feel and function over the heavily-customized skins the various OEMs produce. Food for thought.

To get past the majority of these customizations it is recommended that you install a 3rd-party launcher such as Apex or Atom. Atom was designed from the ground up to be both ICS- and JellyBean-compliant, and having used it for a few days I can say that it's a good launcher on my SGS 3. It's smooth, fast, customizable, and restores such things as the uninstall-with-an-icon-drag feature that was such a nice point of ICS.

Again, sorry for the delay. I hope you're enjoying the new software!

[NicciVonDame]

Thank you so much! I appreciate you responding, no one else has. Your information has been very helpful. I had heard before that the UI is what changes ICS from phone to phone. I'm overall happy with the new software. I discover new things every day. I think they did a pretty good job. Although I do have a new question that I'm hoping you can help me with. My phone is able to do OTA updates. This was important to me (previously I had the iPhone 4 and when it was finally able to do OTA updates I loved that) However, I had to connect to Kies to get the new firmware. When I picked up my phone one day it said connecting to DM server, as if it was going to download the new update but after connecting, it failed them never came back. So I'm wondering why I had to use Kies if my phone is OTA capable. I hope you can help! Again, I appreciate your response.

Nicci
Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[CR6]

Welcome to the forum!

tap'n

[NicciVonDame]

Thank you!!

Sent from my SAMSUNG-SGH-I727 using Tapatalk 2

[furbearingmammal]

To be honest, I'm not sure why some updates are Kies-only and others are pushed OTA, especially since there's no rhyme or reason for them that I've seen based on size, security fixes, etc.

I never wait for updates to be pushed to me anyway. As soon as I know there is one I'm manually installing it so I'm always latest and greatest. Of course, when I'm running rooted I never take any update until it's been rooted, but for a stock user such as yourself that doesn't apply.

One thing you can count on -- every update offers a lot of new features and things that you'll like, and usually there will be one or two you won't. The fun is in finding them!

[SLAG IT!]

Welcome aboard and from what I know is two reason for kies versus ota. Kies, is for hoping someone will update and ota annoys you in hopes you mess up and accept the update.

[CSDR]

My wife just got a replacement for her SAMSUNG-SGH-I727. I spent about 1 1/2 hrs with ATT and Samsung tring to get her phone from the ICS to Gingerbread. And i think our next phones are going to be I Phones. I was told it can not be downgraded and if you root it your warrenty is voided. My opionion about google just went way down. I don't think there 4.0 was ready to be out. What i foresee going on is to save money Google is using eveyone to BATA test there new 4.0 to save money. I mean all the people are going to have problems so there going to call in and we will give the proble and it gets passed on for free to the creator. While customers have to suffer for someone not testing the way it should be. My wife can not use 90% of her apps cause 4.0 does not support the. When she tries to highlight cut and paste in her text messages it does not do that. Her battery goes down twice as fst as the old ver of 2.3.6 and all she wanted to do is downgrade her phone to the old Android Ver. I was told that it can not be done once it is upgraded. Not happy with android software right now.....