Updated my phone to 2.2 Froyo

Samsung finally honored us with the 2.2 (Froyo) update for the Galaxy S line of phones. Of course there was no way to know about this other than monitoring the forums on T-Mobile as this is not an OTA update, you have to use Keis and manually do the update. This was all explained with images on the T-Mobile forum.

A quick copy of all my pictures / videos was performed. Basically I copied everything off the SD card. I lost nothing here so this was not required but still advised.

I downloaded Keis, installed it, did a reboot, ran it and it needed to install an update to itself. Next I plugged in the phone and told it to start up in Keis mode after I connected the USB cable. It said it was connecting but did not so unplugged and plugged in again and it worked. I was not using the cable that came with the phone but that did not appear to be the issue. I was using a USB port on the back of my machine via a USB extension cable.

It then said I had updates and downloaded them the put them on the phone with a single phone reboot. I lost my home screen icons as it put the ones out there that Samsung and T-Mobile decided I needed the most. Deleted all that crap and reset to what I basically remember my phone being set to and I was off and running.

I must say I was expecting more initially. Things really look the same. There are little tweaks here and there, good tweaks so far, but nothing major seems to have changed. I don't know what I expected but I guess I wanted some WOW factor that I did not get.

The tweaks I have noticed:

• GMail application has more buttons that don't scroll off screen when you scroll the text of the message. Reply, Reply All, Next Msg, Prev Msg, etc. This is very nice.
• GMail - easy access to more than one account with account name along top of screen.
• Bluetooth (BT) - turn it on and you instantly see what devices it is scanning against to connect to.
• BT - turn it off from notification drop down and it just turns off, no need to pop up screen and press the check box to toggle it off
• Settings menu now has color icons
• Menu screen search control has drop down of things to search against (All, Web, Apps, Contacts)
• Accuweather on daily briefing has new layout and more information
• AP Mobile news on daily briefing has news type tabs
• You can stop auto rotation from the notification toolbar
• WiFi calling application (I have not used this)
• New USB debugging enabled icon

I am sure there are a number of other things but this is what I ran into after piddling around with the phone post update for an hour or so and doing my normal routine with it such as turning on BT just before getting in the car this morning and shutting it off when I get to work.

The update was smooth enough and did not appear to break anything so I also updated my wife's phone. She has the exact same model. I showed her the changes I had found and asked if they liked / wanted them first. Of course it had to redownload the binaries. Thought maybe it would have cached them to disk but I guess most will only update one phone so that is understandable. I wrote down what she had on her home screens and tried my best to recreate them after the reboot. She will enjoy a lot of the changes more than I do as she gets a lot more email, uses the calendar more than I do and checks the weather more often too.

Good to be up to date. I have not tried out any Flash games or sites as of yet. Don't know if the phone is any faster / slower than it was before. I connected to both of my Blue Tooth devices this morning (ODBII reader I use with Torque and standard car BT talk on phone + music) without a hitch.

I have not had the phone for long and have never rooted it or really done anything out of the norm with it. I use it as my main development device at home and work. I had to install new USB device drivers to get ADB to work again. They installed via Kies installed at home and work. So far so good.