Ice Cream Sandwich update for Samsung Galaxy S2 confirmed by Samsung

[sam_soong · Accepted solution]

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Lesthehammer wrote:

Haven't got round to updating mine yet as I've been watching this thread with interest to see  how other's experiences of updating have been.

So after Kies finishes the update, do you just switch phone on again & your settings, email accounts, wifi setiings etc are all as they were or do you have to set everything up afresh as if it were a new phone?

Just trying to work out whether to do update now or if I need to set aside some time when I can to set everthing up again...

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Yeah mate. It kept everything intact. Settings, music, text messages etc. The only things that changed were the order of some of the app icons which can be easily moved back to your own taste and 2 of my 3 email accounts went walkies. I just had to re-enter the server details and "push" through the mails from those accounts again. I'd strongly reccomend doing a back-up of all your important data on Kies before proceeding with the update though just as an incase.

[CraigWW]

Think I was just unlucky, everything downloaded fine last night but it was only this morning when I noticed the internet was not working, as previously said, the only thing that sorted my phone was a full factory reset, I then had to reinstall everything. Did the same on the other halfs and all apps etc were kept, v confused, but at least now both phones are fully operational again.

[djchrisr · Accepted solution]

I had the same problem with the internet not working but I didn't go to such drastic measures. I just went into settings and cleared the cache and reset the browser and it then worked. I was worried at first I might have to to a full factory reset but thank goodness I didn't have to.

Everything else worked a treat, all my apps updated that needed to and all my data was there just like before.

I went into Settings>Applications>All>Internet then selected clear data and clear cache. No need for full factory reset - not in my experience anyway.

[Lesthehammer]

Thanks sam_soong

Well, took the plunge and updated last night & all went fairly smoothly. Once completed the instructions on Kies are not that clear but just unplugged usb from phone & apps appeared to be updating.

First thoughts? Kind of 'Is that it then?' Somewhat underwhelming although I guess that's in part due to what Samsung add to ICS.

What's changed ?? (very little!):

Phone takes slightly longer to boot up first thing?

Favourites pictures in Contacts are larger & therefore less clearer - a step back in my opinion

Font has changed

Swipe to unlock improved so you don't need to swipe so far to unlock. But rather unneccesary notice at top of screen telling you to swipe to unlock is just ugly.

Signal strength maybe a little lower than before?? Although this could be just an impression due to the shape of the meter having changed or current atmospheric conditions

Wifi strength possible improved (although mine was always pretty good previously)

One bug I've noticed - with wifi sleep policy:

I have 'Keep wifi on during sleep' set to 'never' so that when phone sleeps, it should revert to mobile data but it seems to stay on wifi. I know it used to take 15 mins in sleep mode before wifi switches off but now even after more than 15 mins, it still remains on. Not a big problem as indoors wifi seems to drain the battery no more , maybe less than mobile data.

But it's a bug nonetheless - anyone else getting this??

[Lesthehammer]

Can't seem to edit my previous post so a PS to my last post...

Noticed that mobile data has come on once or twice whilst in sleep mode but seems rather erratic. Whether due to poot mobile data reception who knows...

For me at least so far ICS seems a step backwards.

[TAZMANUK]

one annoying thing the way u could of copied text and then long press paste now its clipboard which aint working and long winded oh hum

[Lesthehammer]

Been keeping an eye on whats happening with wifi sleep policy throughout the day & most times when I wake phone (after more than 15 mins), wifi is still on despite the fact I have it set to turn off during sleep...

However, a couple times on waking phone I noted mobile data rather than wifi was showing so thought perhaps sleep policy had started to work ok...

A moment ago however with phone awake, wifi just turned off & mobile data started. Checked in wifi setting and it said 'out of range' even though I was no more than 2m from the router!!

Not sure what's going on now- can't see how an upgrade to ICS could affect wifi connectivity.

After all the anticipation I rather wish I hadn't bothered with the ICS upgrade now - a few cosmetic changes, no noticeable benefits & phone performs worse than it did before ;(

[sam_soong]

It's funny all this. We were all moaning about when it was going to get here for a couple of months and now we've got it slightly ahead of when we were expecting, we're still moaning. lol

All in all though, it's a nice little update. The whole phone definitley feels a lot smoother and the battery life has improved a lot I feel. Worth all the hype though? As I feared no it probably isn't. The face unlock is "cool" but could do with a little tweaking and there's a few naughty little bugs there that need ironing out too. If there's a 4.0.4, I'm sure they'll be ironed out accordingly though. But other than that, there's not alot that makes you go WOW this was worth the wait and hype really in my opinion.

[Tod55]

Done the update.........I have so far found nothing good about it.

Looks pretty much the same - settings menu looks a bit nicer.

Contact pictures no longer update from facebook

Yahoo Calendar no longer syncs with the phone, and does not come up as an option in sync.

[Tod55]

You can also no longer edit contacts imported from services like Yahoo.  The phone used to allow this by creating a phone contact if it could not sync the changes back to Yahoo (which incidently it used to be able to do).

Is there a way of uninstalling this Google walled garden - I can't believe how they are shutting down compatability with other providers services - thats not what android is supposed to be about.