No, it’s not quite the same as getting your hands on the upcoming Nexus Prime and tasting Android Ice Cream Sandwich, but it is nice to see that the old darling of the Droid world is still getting some love. If you happen to have an unbraded version of the Google Nexus One, you should be receiving an OTA update for Android 2.3.6 Gingerbread.

The over the air update should be a seamless upgrade, like most other updates to Android, and it has been confirmed that this update “doesn’t seem to hobble the Wi-Fi tethering option that some Nexus S owners experienced.” That’s the good news.

I wouldn’t say that it’s bad news, but the neutral news is that Android 2.3.6 doesn’t seem to come along with too much in terms of fancy bells and whistles. It appears that this is mostly a security patch and minor bug fix. In any case, the update is rolling out to the unbranded Nexus Ones so if you’re still rocking one of these gems, you might want to check if you can have it yet.

The post Unbranded Nexus One now getting Android Gingerbread 2.3.6 appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Donut. Eclair. Froyo. Gingerbread. Google Android is filled with all sorts of delectable treats, but not all phones are treated alike. Even when Google officially announces and releases a new version of its mobile operating system, you don’t get to enjoy that new Android OS right away; you have to wait for the carrier and manufacturer to push it to you (unless you like unofficial ROMs). So, who reigns supreme in this regard?

JP Raphael of Computer World has compiled a list of all the major Android smartphones released through the four major carriers in the United States, seeing which devices were able to get a taste of the Froyo (Android 2.2) before the rest. The results are quite interesting, to say the least.

In terms of manufacturers, HTC “is the best by a long shot.” Considering that the Froyo source code was released in June 2010, HTC has been able to push it to 50% of its phones within that calendar year. The average upgrade time is 56 days. Motorola is second with just 15.4% of its phones getting Froyo in 2010. Samsung has only upgraded one of its nine phones to Froyo, but that’s still better than Dell, LG, and Sony. None of their phones got Froyo in 2010.

What about on the carrier front? Verizon Wireless has really been pushing its DROID line of devices and they’re following through with the most Froyo upgrades too. A third of the qualifying Verizon Android phones got Android 2.2 in 2010, compared to 28.6% of Sprint phones, 12.5% of T-Mobile phones, and 0.0% of AT&T phones.

So, what’s the take home message? If you want the newest versions of Android to get pushed to you over the air in the timeliest of fashions, stick with an HTC from Verizon and you’ll give yourself the best shot.

The post Analysis: Who gets the newest Android versions first? appeared first on Mobile Magazine.

Well, that didn’t take very long at all. The hotly anticipated Google Nexus S with its Gingerbread-flavored Android operating system has been out for less than a week and it’s already getting its first update. The Nexus S — sourced from Samsung —  will get the first over-the-air (OTA) update bringing the system to GRH78, offering “important bug fixes” and the latest version of Maps. Very early reports from users don’t seem to indicate any major changes that are clearly visible, but we’ll keep our ears to the ground to see what Google has done with this update.

If you’d rather not wait for the OTA update, you can do the manual thing and download the file yourself, rename it to update.zip, move it to the root of your internal storage, shut off your phone, turn it back on while holding volume up (bootloader), choose “recovery” using the volume keys, select with the power button, wait for the red triangle, press volume up and power, and choose update. Whew. Maybe the OTA method is worth waiting for.

[Android Central]

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