Hero Android 2.0 Upgradeable??

[c3PreO]

Well, our Heros shipped with Android 1.5 and since we've owned it, we've seen 1.6...1.7 and now today Android 2.0 (SDK) was announced.

The Motorola will be shipping with 2.0 soon.

Does anyone know if our Hero is upgradable to Android 2.0 or are we stuck in the mud??

 

[Wiseguy158]

Since the Sprint Hero is shipped w/ the HTC Sense UI, I don't think it will be directly "upgradeable". I put it in quotation marks because a few of the things that the 2.0 release will include, HTC has already included in the sense UI. Do a search on the features that 2.0 will have and you'll see that we aren't really that down and out. If there are enough features that customers want from 2.0, I'm sure HTC will do a 2.0/senseUI release at some point.

 

[c3PreO]

Good to know. Atleast the Hero has seven screens to customize as opposed to three screens on most other Android phones.

Let's hope HTC keeps improving on their Sense UI and makes that available to Sprint (us).

 

[badchad#WP]

I hope we get 2.0. There are definitely features I want. The things I'm really looking forward to are bolded.

* Support for multiple Google and Exchange accounts
* Third-party "sync adapters" allow apps to tie in to the phone's sync services
* Quick contact menus for fast access to specific key pieces of contact information
* Unified email inbox (yes!)
* SMS and MMS search
* Text message auto-delete after a user-defined thread size is reached
* Significantly improved camera controls with white balance, macro, effects, and more
* Improved keyboard layout, dictionary, and algorithm based on multi-touch support
* Double-tap zoom in browser, support for HTML5
* Bluetooth 2.1 support with addition of OPP and PBAP profiles
* "Better" graphics hardware acceleration

 

[ERDude]

I spoke with HTC today, there are 17 known bugs with the HTC Hero, according to the development guy I was transferred to HTC is waiting for Sprint to: 1. decide how they want to handle the updates and 2. give the ok to release the update. So far no word from Sprint on how they'd like to handle the update.

He also stated that the Hero was released with 1.5 and the back ported CDMA capability because Sprint wanted the HTC Sense UI which wasn't ready for 1.6, it currently is ready for 1.6, again they haven't heard back from Sprint.

2.0 is almost ready and when it is they will be releasing 2.0 to all the carriers, they don't know what Sprint will do.

HTC believes the 17 reported bugs with the Hero are due to the back porting of CDMA capabilities into 1.5.

 

[spatel9114]

Why doesn't HTC just release the update OTA themselves like Palm?

 

[infenit101]

Need to fix the camera. It is awful.

 

[ERDude]

Why doesn't HTC just release the update OTA themselves like Palm?

Because Sprint has to approve everything from the update itself to the programs included. All carriers do the same thing.

 

[omarb]

I do hope that HTC keeps up with the Android updates. What is the point of an upgradeable OS like Android if you will need to buy a new phone for each new upgrade? There are limits though. I don't expect phones to be upgradeable after a couple of years, but if the Hero does not get at least Android 2.0 than I will surely look outside of HTC next time I do a phone upgrade.

 

[spatel9114]

I do hope that HTC keeps up with the Android updates. What is the point of an upgradeable OS like Android if you will need to buy a new phone for each new upgrade? There are limits though. I don't expect phones to be upgradeable after a couple of years, but if the Hero does not get at least Android 2.0 than I will surely look outside of HTC next time I do a phone upgrade.

Agreed. Something must be done.

 

[omarb]

With today's announcement of the inclusion of Google Navigation in Android 2.0 I really hope that HTC makes the 2.0 upgrade available.

 

[spatel9114]

Honestly, I think they eventually will. It might be months after the initial release, but I think they will. I emailed HTC today about whether or now Hero will get 1.6, but haven't received a response yet, but I will post the response I get as soon as I get it.

EDIT: Also, for those who wanted to know, HTC Hero in the US will NOT be getting a ROM update as the update for other countries went live in September, before the launch of the Hero in the US, so our US Heroes already have the ROM update. If you think yours doesn't (you can check the ROM version in your system settings in your phone and Google which version is the latest version), I was told by the HTC representative to go see your nearest authorized Sprint retailer and they can update it for you. Makes sense, just didn't think about it, myself

 

[natrixgli]

Well I reckon they will have to if they ever want to deliver Flash 10.1 to Hero owners. But then again knowing HTC they will probably have released about 74 billion other phones by the time Flash 10.1 is released for Android.

That will leave us Hero owners stuck viewing the only thing that seems to work reliably with Flash Lite: banner ads.

- n8

 

[dannzeman]

HTC just posted an update on twitter:
The rumors are true! Hero will be getting an Eclair update. We ask for your patience as we update Sense for the fancy new Android OS.


This is awesome!

 

[dekanfrus]

HTC just posted an update on twitter:
The rumors are true! Hero will be getting an Eclair update. We ask for your patience as we update Sense for the fancy new Android OS.


This is awesome!

Great news! I've longed for a blackberry maps that was actually useful for directions for quite some time. What sort of turn around time does HTC generally have with this sort of thing?

 

[ERDude]

Here's a screen capture for those that need photo proof.

 

[spatel9114]

LOL, I JUST got an email back from HTC with the guy saying that they're not sure if they're gonna do updates just yet, haha, this guy is obviously out of the loop.

 

[Ukyo]

Ha! I got that tweet earlier too...

 

[joek71#AC]

Here is the 2.0 version confirmed.

HTC confirmed to be cooking up Android 2.0 update for Hero, other devices unclear

 

[spatel9114]

This definitely just made my day. I was beginning to think my Hero was soon going to be obsolete, but boy was I wrong..and I'm glad I was.

And on the note that they say it may take some time, I'm leaning more towards mid November. I'm sure HTC has been working on this for awhile now, otherwise if they just started reworking the current OS, they would've waited until it was closer to release to tell the public. It's all about time management, they want to lure customers in, keep them drawn, but if they wait too long, customers will leave and get Droid, so I'd say late November tops for this update. We won't be waiting too long.