CyanogenMod 10.1 is continuing to bring Android 4.2 to more devices each day, and Samsung fans will be glad to know that nightly builds are now available for:
Definition: A "nightly" is a bleeding edge release that is built on a daily basis, usually at night after a full day's worth of new code has been committed.
The CyanogenMod team has certainly been busy this week; a few days ago we saw the first CyanogenMod 9 nightly builds appear for the AT&T Galaxy S II and HP Touchpad, and now the original Samsung Galaxy S can join in the party, too.
Definition: A "nightly" is a bleeding edge release that is built on a daily basis, usually at night after a full day's worth of new code has been committed.
It could oftentimes be unstable and not properly tested, lacking any changelogs, but eventually evolving into alphas, betas, release candidates, and finally stable releases.
Nightlies are available for both the i9000 and the i9000B, which is the Brazilian variant of the device, from the CyanogenMod downloads site.
Horrific battery life on Android phones is nothing new, and neither is the mind-blowingshattering frailty of said handsets. We've seen - and reviewed - solutions to both of these issues, but for those who want a convenient, all-in-one product, nothing beats XPAL's "PowerSkins."
Available for a variety of devices, PowerSkins are, in a sentence, silicone cases with built-in batteries from which your phone can sip juice once its internal supply has run dry. With the help of the kind folks on XPAL's PR team, I hooked my EVO 4G up with one and am now ready to report on the aftermath.
Galaxy S owners, you may have a reason for some early celebration. CyanogenMod 7 for the GS variants, which has been around in relatively unsupported early alpha stages for the last couple of months, has just gone quite a bit more formal with the introduction of the new "captivatemtd" device branch.
What does it mean? Captivate is the first device of the Galaxy S bunch to move to the official CM download area in the form of nightlies. Once the nightlies, which, as the word implies are rebuilt nightly, are stable enough to warrant a daily driver, you can expect to see a number of RCs (release candidates), culminating in a stable release.
You might want to take a seat for this one: an early Gingerbread build has leaked for the Samsung Galaxy S I9000, and is now available for download. The file first landed in the hands of one Tricky103, and shortly thereafter was downloaded from Samsung's internal database and uploaded to a public mirror courtesy of iammodo.
Installation instructions are virtually non-existent in the post, so you should probably know your way around modding already before attempting this (update)turns out installation instructions aren't there because it's super simple: just use the three button combo to flash the new ROM.
Fresh off the presses (read: Twitter), @SamsungUK has just tweeted saying that Android 2.2 (Froyo) is now available for the Samsung Galaxy S "on all networks." As this is SamsungUK,I'm guessing that means in the UK only, but I've tweeted back asking for clarification just in case - although whether I hear anything back is dubious at best. Regardless, I'll post here once we have some clarification. It looks like the update will have to be applied manually, through Samsung's KIES software.
To anyone unfamiliar with the situation, this update has been a long time coming after having been delayed a few times - which would explain why people were fairly pissed.
We have good news and bad news (x2), world. The good: the first CM6.1 build for the Samsung Galaxy S has been released. The first (and worst) bit of bad news: at this point, it looks like it's for the GT-i9000 only, and not the US versions of the SGS (though I'm no dev, so I'm not positive). The other bad news: this is apparently a very bug-laden release ("Holy crap, it's full of BUGS!").
Developers codeworkx and coolya have been working on this for quite some time, while keeping the very impatient SGS owners regularly updated on their progress via the CM forums.
All of Samsung's Galaxy S family have the same 4.0" Super-AMOLED screen, share a common iPhone-esque UI, and ... well, that's about it. The disparity between features in the SGS line has certainly caused some frustration with users; two have a flash, one has a keyboard and 4G, one has Bing (not really a feature worth crowing about), and two have front-facing cameras. Those two are the appropriately-named Epic 4G and the mothership, the Galaxy S i9000, which is mainly sold in Europe and Korea.
Considering the striking similarity in the appearance of the i9000 and the Vibrant, it's forgivable that users would confuse the two models, questioning the absence of a front-facing camera on their own devices.
It seems a few community developers (@barakinflorida) have been inching towards releasing a functional, bone stock version of Android 2.1 for the Samsung Galaxy S (That is, without Samsung's TouchWiz interface). Their efforts are paying off, as this video shows.
The only big issues remaining lie in getting the camera/camcorder to actually, well, work. A relatively minor inconvenience, and a problem many developers have struggled with when developing full-ROM releases for phones with UI overlays.
Android 2.1 is starting to seem a little dated to be utilizing for development of ROMs - maybe a stock FroYo update will follow? But now that members of the CyanogenMod team are working on a CM6 build for the Galaxy S, it's hard to say if there will be much demand for a stock Froyo.