New update?

[SnoopisTDI]

I just got notification for an update. I think my phone is currently 5.0.1 and has been since July 2015. I assumed Verizon/Samsung had abandoned us by now, so I'm a little shocked to see a pending update. Does anyone know what this new update is? Are they pushing us to Marshmallow?

 

[BeccaS4]

I'm wondering what's impending as well. My Samsung Galaxy S4 was functioning just fine way back when Verizon started pushing their Lollipop "upgrade" (more like downgrade— a transformation designed by dolts) in I think Spring of 2015. Before allowing the Lollipop upgrade, I'd googled it and bumped into Android Central and saw scads and scads of horrific reviews, people very upset with what this Lollipop so-called "upgrade" was doing to their perfectly fine phone.

After reading all these damning reviews, I determinedly kept putting off this stupid 2015 upgrade. It was very annoying, the constant alerts insisting I set a time to upgrade, but I merely pressed the back button every time they popped up, and successfully avoided this terrible upgrade until Fall of 2015.

Unfortunately, it was bound to happen that at some point, as my finger was stabbing toward my phone to click something, the alert suddenly popped up and OMG no I touched the 'install' button. I had no choice but to watch it install the Lollipop oopsgrade.

After this terrible Fall of 2015 Lollipop """upgrade""", my phone now had numerous annoyances, problems, glitches as well as some very, very, very stupid design decisions— some head-scratchingly anti-ergonomic, some merely laughably ugly. Now it takes forever to fully load all the Internet tabs from previous log-on, has long delays every time I switch between Internet tabs (previously smooth and instant), it's screwed up the formerly easy ability to crop photos, made the clipboard organization ridiculously— oh, I can't list all the stupid annoyances the 2015 Lollipop downgrade infused into my formerly just-fine phone.

So I've been pissed off for a while, but not really wanting to buy a new phone (I wonder sometimes if that's the motivation of Verizon/ Samsung— to essentially screw up our perfectly good phones, thus to get people to run out and replace their now aggravating S4's!). So now this morning I see a notification for a NEW upgrade. And I don't trust Verizon/ Samsung AT ALL in this regard. I peeked into Android Central now because this seems to be a pretty good forum for this sorta stuff. I'm willing to attempt to avoid THIS upgrade as long as I can, but I'm wondering if maybe this might be a solution for all the Lollipop-caused glitches? I doubt that I'll take the chance. But I just wanted to put in my 2 cents— or more like $2— here, and see other people's experiences, reactions, and ideally information about this CURRENT so-called upgrade.

When I googled this subject a few minutes ago I kept hitting pages about Samsung S4 Nougat upgrade, with references to ROM and rooting and all sorts of stuff, which (my being rather ignorant of all this stuff) I sort of presume is NOT what Samsung is pushing us to install?

I hope to hear other people's experiences with these sort of upgrades, including their Lollipop horror stories if any, as well as, more importantly, any information about this from Samsung and Verizon, otherwise known as Dumbererer and Dumberererer.

Thanks.

 

[SnoopisTDI]

Thanks for the response! I delayed Lollipop by a month or so also, although I didn't mind it once I had it. I just always delay any upgrades and come to places like this to see how it's going for everyone else first.

 

[S4Charles]

I thought Samsung/Verizon would have abandoned anything related to my aging S4 also. I went ahead and downloaded the update. It is not Marshmellow. It apparently is just some security updates and I believe the notice says some other things as well. I only downloaded the update 2 or three days ago but have not noticed anything different in my phone since I downloaded it.

Looking in the settings/about phone, I see that the update now has my Kernel version as 3.4.0 (dpl@SWHE9416 #1) and the SE for Android status as Enforcing SEPF_SCH-I545_5.01_0022 as the only changes this update must have made. I don't pretend to know what either of those things mean but anyway that is all I can tell you about the deal.

 

[MYKEL61]

I updated too, by accident. Did it on Saturday and as of today I see no changes to anything and all seems to be running fine.

 

[BeccaS4]

Good to know. We'll see. Right now I have very little confidence in Samsung/ VZW 'upgrades' but at least it sounds like if I accidentally click on the upgrade box (if it pops up suddenly) maybe it won't be the clusterf*** it was last time. Thanks.