Samsung Galaxy S Models Might Get Android OS 4.0 After All

Samsung recently admitted that last year's Galaxy S series won't be getting an upgrade to Android OS 4.0. The company may be reconsidering this after considerable online grumbling from customers.

Although many U.S. residents might be wondering why they should care -- they've never heard of the Samsung Galaxy S -- this issue is actually quite important because this smartphone was very popular in this country under other names: the Samsung Captivate from AT&T, the Samsung Fascinate from Verizon, the Samsung Epic 4G from Sprint, and the Samsung Vibrant from T-Mobile.

Samsung said last week that this device's ROM doesn't have enough room for the the latest version of Android and also for Samsung's TouchWiz alternate user interface. The ROM (Read Only Memory) is a bit of hardware used to store a phone's operating system and bundled applications. Its storage capacity is set when the device is manufactured.

The Backlash
This announcement wasn't a popular one. A typical response was made in the Brighthand Forums by long-time user questionfear, "That's insane. Seriously. If I were Samsung I'd seriously reconsider their investment in TouchWiz if that's the price."

Several days later, a source in S. Korea is reporting that Samsung is thinking twice about its previous decision. The company is supposedly considering different ways of providing an upgrade to Android OS 4.0 for this popular model.

Stay tuned to Brighthand in the coming days for further developments on this story. If Samsung does commit to an official system software upgrade for the Galaxy S series, it will save users from having to turn to "ROM cookers" and other unofficial methods. 

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