Samsung Galaxy S Support has maintained that all Galaxy S phones would have Froyo, including the Epic, by the end of the year. When you view their tweets at
Twitter I am sure you will see this consistent message.
Based on that consistent official line, I have always been conservative in my own expectations. But just today, based
on leaked information at xda that is credible to me, it seems the current target may be a bit sooner: staggered rollouts for U.S. carriers from mid-November through the end of the month, with Sprint coming last on Nov. 29.
Because of the source, a longtime xda member who happens to be a Sprint retail employee, I think that schedule is believable as a target. The caveat I would add is that schedules can always slip. For example, the Epic beta of Froyo that leaked at xda two days ago was reportedly not stable, implying that it was not likely to be the final version. The schedule could slip some and still meet Samsung's announced target of the end of 2010. However, obviously the manufacturer would want to get this out in time for holiday shopping.
As a customer I am less concerned with Samsung's profits than I am with quality of the product. So I hope the firmware is stable, and that Samsung and Sprint will bundle some GPS fix into the release. Based on
early reports about the beta, I am cautiously optimistic about that, too. Samsung has certainly had more than enough time to fix the GPS issues, and a fix needs to be bundled in the next release.