GS2: Kies required for ICS update?

[travelmos]

I'm sorry if this sounds more like another rant against Kies than a question.

I have an International GS2 and a Mac. I've been (sadly) watching the news about ICS update coming last to our international phones (the ones we pay so much for). I bought my GS2 when passing through Bangkok.

I installed Kies on my Mac when I first got my GS2 but it ate so much CPU on my Mac (even when when the UI was not active) I had to uninstall. I'm now reading that I need to use Kies to upgraded to ICS.

Is that true? No over the air updates?

Seriously? I have a top-rated dual-core device that has both wifi and cell data and I still need another computer to update it? Is that just to force people into using Kies? If I wanted to be tied to a crappy desktop interface I would have bought an iPhone and used iTunes.

Poking around the forums I seems like many people have problems with Kies, and many more just think it sucks. Is this the future for the Samsung products -- having to use Kies for updates?

Other than updates, does Kies offer anything that just having a USB connection and mounting the phone's storage won't do?

 

[Russell Ng]

1) Kies is temperamental, buggy... but (eventually) it does work when you get it to connect right. You can use it for official updates and backups (contacts, memos etc), but for everything else, there are options in terms of apps and workarounds.

2) There would always be people who wants to update through PC then relying on data connection or wifi. So having a choice is always good.

3) OTA is rarely done right now, for all carries and all handsets. But I believe in future, this would be a standard option. That's why the SGS2 have a setting in the phone to check for updates directly, and I believe one of the UK carriers already uses OTA. You can't really blame Samsung for this though.

4) Alternatives like Odin is available.