One of the pains of owning an Android device is the uncertainty over updates. I certainly experienced this with my first, Samsung's Galaxy S Vibrant. It is currently stuck at Android v2.2, much to the irritation of my daughter who now uses it. No Instagram, is her primary irritant.
For my second phone, I decided to go safe, and get the Google-branded Nexus S, the Google model current at the time. The carrier is one of Canada's budget brands, Fido. And this time, I won.
It came with Android 2.3. In May, I received an over-the-air upgrade to 4.0.3, some seven months late. I was disappointed with Android 4.0, because more crashes occur. In particular, Google's GMail app runs slow and crashes a lot.
Yesterday around suppertime, 4.0.4 arrived as an OTA. It promised some fixes, and now I suspect it was a prep for today.
For late this morning, a system message announced that 4.1.1 was ready for downloading and installing. Among the messages it is reporting:
- Upgrading apps
- Upgrading Contacts database
- Upgrading Media database
And after about five minutes, it was done. Imagine, my year-old Android phone on a budget carrier, one of the first in the world with Android 4.1.
Update
My primary interests in getting 4.1 were (a) speed, (b) notifications, and UI.
4.0 seemed to slow down my phone in some areas, but now 4.1 makes things the fastest ever. Even notoriously slow apps, like TextPlus, start up at a reasonable speed -- instead of appearing temporarily locked up!
I haven't experienced the "smart" notifications yet, but I suspect they require you to use Google Calendar to set appointments and locations, from which it can urge you to leave in 58 minutes.
The UI is identical in some areas, changed in others. There is less of that obnoxious blue that infected Android 3. The Roboto font is cleaned up; curves in the 4.0 version buldged too much.
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