After 2 weeks of delays, the much anticipated Nexus S 4G update (Sprint only for now, sorry AT&T/T-Mo) to Android 2.3.5 (GRJ90) started rolling out earlier today. If you haven't gotten yours yet but want to apply it immediately to enjoy that nice boost to 4G speeds, among other things, then proceed to our instructions below - you'll be rocking the official 2.3.5 build in no time.
Instructions
Note: Make sure you're running stock Android 2.3.4, build GRJ22 (the update will likely fail if you're rooted).
- Download the update file GRJ90-from-GRJ22 and rename it to update.zip (make sure it's named update.zip and not update.zip.zip if you're using Windows and have it set to hide file extensions).
- Move the file to your phone's /sdcard directory using your favorite method - the easiest way is probably mounting the phone as disk using a USB cable.
- Reboot your phone and when it starts booting back up, hold Volume Up + Power.
- Select Recovery.
- The phone will reboot into recovery but first it'll show an exclamation point and a triangle. At this point, mash the Power and Volume Up buttons a few times until the recovery screen shows up.
- Select Apply sdcard update.zip, which should start the update process.
- Reboot and enjoy Android 2.3.5.
What's New
Here are the important bits in this update:
- Fixes for the Nexus S 4G's signal reception issues - just check out the difference before and after
-
A 4G settings widget- the widget was supposed to be present, according to the Sprint playbook that let us know about the update in the first place, but according to many of you, this widget didn't make it in. - improved speakerphone audio quality
- tuned signal strength indicators
- TTY support
- The NFC secure element, which is critical to Google Wallet
[Update link via Peter Alfonso, more info at xda]