When the Galaxy S2 was released on AT&T, it received a special variant for the operator – branded “Skyrocket”, it went on sale in November 2011. And while AT&T aren’t generally known for the extremely long-term support of their devices, owners of the Skyrocket may be happy to hear that, after three years, they are still getting updates for their phones. Samsung have announced that a new software update for Android is rolling out for users of the device over the air right now.
When the device originally came out, it was released with the 2.3 “Gingerbread” version of the operating system. Subsequently, Samsung and AT&T updated the device to Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”, and the final update that was released for it brought it up to 4.1.2 “Jelly Bean”. That was around the end of 2013, and since then, no news about the device have been released by Samsung or the carrier – until now.
The new update is being released over the air (OTA), and it actually doesn’t bring the version number up from 4.1.2, but rather fixes issues with the current version of the operating system, while introducing some new improvements to its overall performance. The build number will change, of course – the new one is I727UCNJ1, so users should check that if they want to confirm that they’ve successfully updated to the last version of the operating system available for their devices.
Samsung are generally a bit slow when it comes to post-release support of their devices with new versions of Android, although they have traditionally tried to keep most of their devices at roughly the same level. It’s still not known what the status of Android 5.0 is for most of their devices, however.
It’s also not known if this will be the end of the S2 Skyrocket’s life cycle, or if more updates are planned for the device. It’s not very likely though, given its hardware, and the ever increasing system requirements that Android comes with. The newer versions of the operating system have become bulkier and more demanding, perhaps too much for a three-year old device to handle – but on the other hand, if Samsung decide to modify the operating system and remove some of the heavier features, this could bring it to a state where it’s suitable for deployment on the S2.
Either way, owners of the S2 Skyrocket should connect to a Wi-Fi network and perform a system update search, and they should see the new update available shortly. No users have reported any installation issues so far, and those who have installed the new update seem to be happy with its performance, judging by discussion boards.