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What the google s4 means for us?

G

goft20

Lurker
Will the release of this device mean that the the "samsung" s4 will be able to get official google updates without having to wait on samsung (provided that you root the phone and install the google factory image)?
 
That's an excellent question and one I hope gets answered soon. Just got an S4 through Verizon on Thursday so the return clock is ticking.
 
goft20 said:
Will the release of this device mean that the the "samsung" s4 will be able to get official google updates without having to wait on samsung (provided that you root the phone and install the google factory image)?
Click to expand...

It means the Google Edition GS4 will get updates straight from Google and will be treated as a Nexus phone, for the normal GS4 it may mean more dev support in terms of AOSP, ROMs, Kernels, Games, Apps etc... Updates will still come from Samsung in the normal GS4. Think of the GS4 GE as a sort of Galaxy Nexus 2.
 
goft20 said:
Will the release of this device mean that the the "samsung" s4 will be able to get official google updates without having to wait on samsung (provided that you root the phone and install the google factory image)?
Click to expand...
It should mean that the Google version will indeed get direct updates from Google themselves. What's still fuzzy is if they will post full factory images and binaries on their website. The Motorola Xoom WiFi tablet was a stock android device and was viewed by many as a nexus device. However there are no factory images for it on the Google Developers website, though there are binaries. So thus it is unknown how open it will be and how helpful it will be for creating AOSP roms.

One of the downsides of this Google edition, depending on which side of the fence you are on, is that all of the perks of touchwiz will be absent. No smart stay, camera software will be stock and not Samsung's, no multi-view, etc. However many might view this as a positive though. The Normal S4 will still be updated by Samsung and will thus take longer as a result to update.
 
As long as I can get an unlocked bootloader I'll be hitting up the stock roms.

The camera app on the S4 is amazing, but as a whole, I miss my old galaxy nexus OS in so many ways.
 
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