It seems, in light of the rollout of Android 5.0 Lollipop for the Nexus series of phones that happened this week, AT&T is making an attempt to make sure their customers sporting devices that aren’t going to be seeing Lollipop anytime soon don’t feel overly alienated. A series of updates aimed at a small, but very popular, assortment of smartphones were sent OTA (Over the Air) today to give a few older devices some additional functionality. I always like hearing about this sort of thing hitting the market. It proves that the larger carriers are aware that the majority of their customers are not in the newest and greatest. Sometimes what we have works just fine. Adding some shelf-life to them is just good customer retention.
First up, the Galaxy S4 was given a pretty major update. While it doesn’t look like the S4 will be getting Lollipop anytime soon, the Android 4.4.4 update is nothing to shake your head at either, especially in a phone that was always as impressive as the S4. There are a few features that comes along with the 4.4.4 update that you’ll find on 5.0, such as Keeper and Mail, things that there seems to be honestly a mixed reception concerning the apps. An assortment of behind-the-scenes bug updates are usual fare, but the biggest surprise, to me at least, was the Knox 2.0 platform that was included along with 4.4.4.
The S4 is still one of the better Samsung devices on the market.
Knox 2.0 has been around since late February and is an interesting move on AT&T’s part concerning the S4 update. Knox 2.0 allows a great deal of security even with basic apps, allowing you to keep your information, from the top down, secure without actually needing to run the Knox platform itself. While Knox is primarily meant for businesses, their security suite is one of the most impressive on the market and this move, to me, feels like it may be Samsung’s testing ground to see if including Knox as standard will actually work for everyone, primarily individual users.
AT&T is also including a nice grouping of updates for even older devices like the Galaxy Note 2, the Galaxy S3, and the Galaxy Mega. Don’t expect 5.0 or even a 4.4.4 update like the S4 received. Instead, AT&T is calling them “Android OS Enhancements” that seems to be tailored to each of the three devices that are getting the updates. While they’re note being too forthcoming about what the updates are going to include, it seems that they may be somewhat significant even if they are keeping the OS in the 4.4.2 version. You’ll need to be connected to Wifi to download the entire update, though a portion does seem to hit OTA like was mentioned. Hit us up in the comments if you own one of these devices and see any significant changes to your smartphone.
The Mega is quite…big. Imagine that.
If you own any of the devices mentioned and haven’t had an update hit your phone yet, be sure to head into your Settings menu and check the Software Version to see if the update is just lurking in the wings.
