If you own a Samsung Galaxy S III on Verizon you will be pleased to know that the update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has started rolling out to your device. This update to the Galaxy S III will bring the device to software version JRO03L.I535VRBLK3 and is 64MB in size. Be patient as even though we have had reports of devices getting the update today, Verizon has stated phasing of the OTA (over the air) update will start tomorrow December 14th. Manual installations will also be available although not until next week.

Samsung Galaxy S III Update Features:

• Google Now – Just the right information at just the right time. Get today’s weather before you start your day, how much traffic to expect before you leave for work, and when the next train will arrive as you’re standing on the platform.
• Google Maps – Includes the most up to date version of Google Maps with “voice typing.”
• S Voice – S-Voice has been improved for better voice recognition. S-Voice and Smart Share now work together seamlessly.
• Notifications – Take action directly from the notifications panel. Send emails, return calls, share photos, and more. Also enjoy expandable notifications.
• Photo Effects – Take advantage of 11 new Photo Effect Filters
• Swype Keyboard – Take advantage of an enhanced and more accurate SWYPE Keyboard.
• Widgets – Widgets can be resized to fit them where you need them to be.
• Global Support – Device is enabled for Global Roaming. Now take advantage of voice and data services in over 205 countries worldwide.
• Isis Mobile Wallet – Device now includes support for the Isis Mobile Wallet™ Shop, pay, and save with your phone using the Isis Mobile Wallet. The Isis Mobile Wallet holds virtual versions of most things your existing wallet does such as payment cards, loyalty cards and coupons. Just tap your phone to pay at any Isis Ready™ merchant. Note: Isis is available in select markets only. A new Sim Card and special software will be required to use the Isis Mobile Wallet.
• Improved connectivity and reliability when syncing Google and POP-3 e-mail accounts.
• Enhancements made to improve accuracy of predictive text.
• Automatic Set Up option has been enabled when setting up a Road Runner email account.
• Improved accuracy and runs reliability of Weather application.
• Visual Voicemail has been updated to ensure proper delivery of notifications.
• Fixed resets that were sometimes seen when trying to connect to a VPN client.
• Support for opening attachments in .ics format.
• Now supports Software Upgrade Assistant; installs and runs automatically when plugged in to your computer’s USB port.
• Missed Call Log has been updated to ensure accuracy.
• Enhancements have been made to ensure the reliability of Back Up Assistant Plus.
• Improvements made to automatically reconnect to known previously used Wi-Fi sources hot spots.
• Verizon Accessories Application has been added as a preload.

When those of you reading this get the update to your Galaxy S III’s be sure to let us know and where you are in the world.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has started rolling out to the International version of the HTC One X. We have verified the update throughout Europe and Asia after originally starting in Taiwan. This update is only hitting the Tegra 3 powered devices, which of course is all international versions (non-US).

This new software update to the HTC One X will bring its Android version to 4.1 Jelly Bean and HTC Sense 4+ (the latest version of Sense). Some of the new features include SMS forwarding, an updated gallery, and password protection for message inbox. Also with HTC Sense 4+ there is said to be a massive 10 percent increase in performance from Google’s Project Butter improvement. There will of course also be your other standard Jelly Bean features that all devices with the update can expect.

With this currently being an update for only the International versions of the popular HTC One X the US is left out for now. There is no date set to get the Android 4.1 update on the US version of the One X although we can assume with no big road blocks from carriers we will see the update in the US within a few weeks.

Sony has finally announced its Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update plans and the Android devices that will see the upgrade. While Sony has announced its upgrade plans it seems their timeline is a bit drawn out and doesn’t even start until Q1 next year. The first devices that they mentioned will be getting the updates are the Sony Xperia T, Xperia TX, and Xperia V all slated for mid Q1 2013.

Sony Devices that will get Adnroid 4.1 Jelly Bean (no set date):

• Xperia Tablet S
• Xperia S and ACRO S
• Xperia Ion
• Xperia P and J
• Xperia Go

Sony has also stated that none of its 2011 Android devices will see the Jelly Bean update including the Xperia Arc, Arc S, Play, Neo, Neo V, Mini, Mini Pro, Pro, Active, Ray, Sony Ericsson Live or Walkman. With all of this said at least Sony has taken the time to let their users know what is going on with their devices after leaving everyone in the dark for so long.

Before you get too excited the roll out is not in the immediate future and Samsung’s official statement is “in the coming months”. Samsung has however created an official press release titled “Samsung Mobile to Begin Jelly Bean Update with TouchWiz Enhancements for Galaxy S III Smartphones in the U.S.”. This heading got us really excited and then there it was, Samsung’s version of “coming soon”. Samsung has also mentioned that the update may come over the air or Kies which again says nothing definitive. See the press release below:

Samsung Mobile to Begin Jelly Bean Update with TouchWiz® Enhancements for Galaxy S® III Smartphones in the U.S.
Available in the coming months, the Galaxy S III update offers the latest Android™ platform; new camera, video and customization enhancements; and access to ESPN’s ScoreCenter app with custom AllShare® integration

DALLAS — October 17, 2012 — Samsung Telecommunications America, LLC (Samsung Mobile) – the No.1 mobile phone provider in the United States and a subsidiary of Samsung Electronics Co., Ltd., the No. 1 smartphone provider worldwide –continues its commitment to bringing the latest innovation to market with the rollout of Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, the latest version of the world’s most popular smartphone operating system, to all Galaxy S III smartphones in the U.S. in the coming months.

The update will be made available both over the air and as a download via Kies, Samsung’s content sync and software update solution. The specific timing and update method will be announced by each carrier partner, AT&T, Sprint, T-Mobile, Verizon Wireless and U.S. Cellular.

Galaxy S III owners will receive the Jelly Bean update as well as a host of new and enhanced TouchWiz features, making it a faster, richer and more responsive device experience. Samsung’s best-selling flagship smartphone just got even better.

Samsung refined and enhanced the Galaxy S III experience by adding new capabilities to the camera, video and user interface, including:

• New live camera and camcorder filters offer a range of new ways to spark your creativity. Warm vintage, cold vintage, black and white, sepia, color highlights (blue, green, red/yellow), and many more are selectable from the main camera screen.
• Pause and resume while recording video allows users to string together multiple captured video clips from a party, birthday or sporting event into a single file with no post editing required.
• Low light photo mode takes advantage of Galaxy S III’s best-in-class High Dynamic Range (HDR) capabilities and offers an optimized mode for low light and indoor photos.
• Pop Up Play Update: Users can now easily resize or pause the Pop Up Play picture-in-picture video window, taking full advantage of the Galaxy S III’s powerful processor and large 4.8-inch screen.
• Easy Mode: Easy Mode is a simplified user experience option for first-time smartphone owners, providing large home screen widgets that focus on the device essentials. The Easy widgets include both 4×2 and 4×4 arrangements of favorite contacts, favorite apps, favorite settings, clock and alarm.
• Blocking Mode: Galaxy S III owners can disable incoming calls, notifications, alarms and LED indicators for a designated period of time.
• Improved Usability: Users now have multiple keyboard options with the addition of the Swype® keyboard.

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean offers users a smoother, faster and more fluid experience with expanded feature functionality, including:

• Google Now™: Google Now gives users the right information at the right time, like how much traffic to expect before leaving work, when the next train is scheduled to arrive at the subway station or the score of a favorite team’s current game – conveniently delivered as notifications. Additionally, Google Now provides powerful voice assistant functionality across a range of domains, including weather, maps, navigation, search, image search, flight status and more. Google Now can conveniently be launched from the lock screen shortcut or by a long press on the menu button from any screen.
• Rich Notifications: Notifications can now expand and shrink with a pinch to show the right amount of information a user needs. Notifications have been enhanced so action can be taken without having to launch the app first – like sharing a screenshot directly from the notification.
• Automatic Widget Adjustment: Customizing the home screen is easier than ever before. Users can simply place a new icon or widget on the screen, and existing icons will move out of the way to make space. When widgets are too big, they automatically resize to fit on the screen.

In addition to the operating system update, Samsung and ESPN worked together to integrate AllShare® technology into ESPN’s popular ScoreCenter® application. This means Galaxy S III owners will now be able to wirelessly push on-demand ESPN global sports coverage and highlights from the ESPN ScoreCenter app to their Samsung SMART TV™. When on the same Wi-Fi network as a Samsung SMART TV, a sharing icon will appear within the ScoreCenter video player which allows users to seamlessly push what they are watching to the TV. The ScoreCenter app with AllShare integration is available today for download through S Suggest™ on all U.S. Galaxy S III devices.

If you own an HTC One series Android phone you know there has been promises by HTC to update the devices to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean. The HTC One series of Android devices are one of the best designed and feature filled devices of the year only to be compared to the Samsung Galaxy S III. While HTC has made the promise to “listen to their customers” as well as timely updates to their devices it seems its a false sense of security.

HTC has missed many deadlines on their newer devices as well as ones that have been around for some time like the Thunderbolt and Incredible 2. Both of these devices have been slated for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and both missed their deadlines.

With the release of the HTC One X+ which is a small upgrade from the HTC One X and not worth spending for the upgrade HTC has gone back on its most basic stance of slower phone rollout to shift focus to quality. The largest part of this promise was to only rollout new devices and the HTC One X+ is obviously an upgrade to a current model that has only been out a short time itself.

HTC was one of the first manufacturers to promise they would be releasing the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update to their devices. More specifically the confirmation was for the One Series of devices. There was never an ETA on the Jelly Bean updates although they used to overly used term “soon”. We haven’t seen so much as a leaked build for the One Series which leads us to believe that soon was just a term used to keep the community interested in the device and those users that were thinking of another device to be persuaded.

From what we have heard the HTC One Series of Android devices will not get the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update until December at best. Usually this rollout would start with the International versions and followed by the carrier specific versions. HTC has disappointed many of its users by making hollow promises and if they plan on keeping their commitments and customers happy are going to need to get on the ball with this update.

Personally we love HTC devices and usually choose the HTC counterpart of any Samsung device when talking about our personal daily use phone. This being said the winds could change if using their devices is a gamble when it comes to latest and greatest updates when promised. Please chime in via comments below to let us know how you feel about HTC’s inability to keep their promises and the lack of updates to Flagship devices specifically.

According to SamMobile, Samsung may be releasing the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update to the Galaxy S III as soon as August. SamMobile is basically a stalker of Samsung Mobile and their testing of software and apparently the Android 4.1 tests on the Galaxy S III have been going well so far.

While they are having successful tests on the Galaxy S III they will have to test the software on all of the variants. The Galaxy S III depending on the version has Samsung’s Exynos chip or Qualcomm’s Snapdragon S4 which means there could be two completely different results when testing.

As it stands there should be some announcement shortly on the updates to Android 4.1 on a few of their devices including the Galaxy S III and the Galaxy S II as well. Stay tuned and we will be sure to keep you updated on the update release.

Since Android is an open source operating system its difficult to get updates as soon as a new version is released. The latest version of Android is version 4.1 Jelly Bean and is currently only available on a few devices although ASUS is working on updates to their devices that can support it. ASUS officially made a statement on their Facebook page to let users know their intentions with the update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean:

“We are pleased to announce that we will be updating many of our tablet products to Android 4.1, Jelly Bean. The ASUS Transformer Pad, ASUS Transformer Pad Prime and ASUS Transformer Pad Infinity are all scheduled to receive an update to Jelly Bean in the coming months.”

Since the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update will require more processing power than its little brother Ice Cream Sandwich not all ASUS devices will get the update. ASUS has made it clear that they will be looking into the limitations on a per device basis and will update all of them they can with the new OS:

“We are still investigating Jelly Bean updates for other devices, but we are not in a position to confirm whether any other products will be eligible for an update at the moment.”

Android 4.1 Jelly Bean has many enhancements over its last version as well as some great new features like Google Now which is Google’s version of the popular Siri on newer Apple devices. Almost all Android devices that have been announced this year will see this update although only HTC and ASUS have confirmed that the updates are on their way.

HTC has sent out an announcement confirming that the HTC One X, One XL, and One S will be getting the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update. Hopefully we will see this update sooner than later on not only the Global version’s but local T-mobile and AT&T versions as well. The Official statement from HTC is as follows:

“We know HTC fans are excited to get their hands on Google’s latest version of Android. At this point in time, we can confirm that we have plans to upgrade our HTC One X, HTC One XL and HTC One S to Jelly Bean. Please stay tuned for more updates regarding device upgrades, timing and other details about HTC and Jelly Bean.”

It was confirmed that the carrier versions of the One X, XL, and S will also get the update to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean although no timing has been released. Carriers that were mentioned were AT&T, T-Mobile, and Rogers and there has been no mention of the One V or EVO 4G LTE. We will update you with dates as they come available.

We already knew that the middle of July was the time those that own a WiFi-only Motorola Xoom would get a taste of Android 4.1 Jelly Bean.  The time has come where those that are members of the Motorola Feedback Network will start getting the updates.  Soak test emails were just sent out about two to three hours ago and those willing to test Android 4.1 Jelly Bean on their Xoom Wifi’s can get involved now.

Those that aren’t members of the Motorola Feedback Network should be getting the update about a week after soak testing begins.  This being said if all goes well everyone with a Wifi Xoom should have the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update by the end of the month.

Currently we already know that the Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S will be getting the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update this month. This being said this means that we know Samsung has the source needed to update their Galaxy S III to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean and so long as everything is compatible as we assume it is the update should not take that long. Samsung does however need to wait on component manufacturers to let them know any limitations and soon after Samsung will be able to start testing and release the update. Samsung did make a statement to PocketLint stating:

“In the case that a new version of an Android operating system is publicly announced and released, Samsung will review the possibility of implementation to existing Samsung products with the Android operating system (“Update”). Such a review will be based on various factors including, the overall effect of the update to Samsung products, the system requirements, the structural limitations, and the level of cooperation from the component suppliers and the software licensors. If Samsung decides to make the update available to the users it will be released upon successful completion of development.”

We have heard already that Samsung will be releasing more information on their plans to update their newer devices to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean very soon.

“Samsung will soon announce which additional devices are eligible for the Jelly Bean update. As the world’s largest smartphone manufacturer, Samsung leads the Android community with best-in-class devices like the Galaxy S III, and is creating new device categories with products like the Galaxy Note. Samsung has delivered the most Nexus-branded lead OS devices and we are pleased that Google will be bringing Samsung Galaxy Nexus and Nexus S customers the first experiences of Jelly Bean on a handheld device.”

As soon as Samsung releases a complete list of devices that they will be updating to Android 4.1 Jelly Bean we will be sure to let you know. If anyone else catches wind of the update list before we do please feel free to let us know via comments below.

Currently there is no set date for the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update to for the HTC One X although being HTC’s current flagship phone it will be getting the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update no doubt. The HTC One X already has SDK ports of the new Android 4.1 OS available for it so proof of concept is already there (we know it works).

This being said there is a chance with HTC and their history of updates that the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update could take as long as early 2013. The update will be pushed by HTC i’m sure to their One X and One S models before any other HTC device although there are many other manufacturers that will probably push out much sooner.

As we get more information on the Android 4.1 Jelly Bean update schedule from HTC we will post it here. Until then if anyone catches wind or has an oppinion on the matter feel free to share or express via comments below.

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