Official upgrade to Jelly Bean

[Radu Erdei]

Hi,

I just switched from an old iPhone 3G to Galaxy S2 and Android is totally different world for me at the moment.
The phone is carrier free and came with Ice Cream Sandwitch even if i observed that most S2's come with Gingerbread. Of course, I want to upgrade to the "latest supported" software version, and i understand that would be Jelly Bean.
Here comes my question: is it the same way as on IOS? If you need unlock after upgrade, you use unofficial rom, if you have carrier free phone you can upgrade from official source? I'm asking because neither Kies nor Samsung Settings ask for upgrade to JB, they say that the latest version is installed. Isn't that wrong?

Thank you.

 

[anon(94115)]

Is it the international S2? If so the update has not been rolled out yet.

Here is the biggest thing that is different and not necessarily better, than iOS. Updates to the OS are kinda slow. Google releases the code, then Samsung has to make it work and add in Touchwiz, then it rolls out to the international versions. If it is carrier branded, it takes even longer....

That all being said, what i am reading is that it is not all that far off.

 

[Radu Erdei]

Yes, the phone isn't carrier branded, no service contract, so i can use it with any carrier. This would mean i can use the official Samsung/Android upgrade without fearing to lock it on any network.
My concern was regarding these "modified OS images" and Samsung's OS upgrade politics. I should be able to upgrade S2 until the OS won't support the hardware anymore, right? Or, you get limited upgrade which would mean that, legally, you are stuck with whatever OS the phone came on the market?
Maybe these are stupid questions for most...

 

[anon(94115)]

in theory you should be able to use an international ROM, but then you are going to have to set the APN numbers for your carrier to get everything to work properly.

You will be able to upgrade the OS as long as Samsung is going to support it. For the S2 I would say that Jellybean is about it. Officially.

Unofficially, you can flash a ROM (like cyanogen) and continue the upgrade path. This is a bit more involved and is not officially supported.