Another Build of Jelly Bean Leaks for the SGS3; More Proof it is Coming Soon?

[dgstorm]

The folks over at XDA have another leaked build of Jelly Bean for the Samsung Galaxy S III. This new one is version I9300XXDLI1 and brings with it Android 4.1.1. It is also dated from yesterday, so this pretty much points to an impending launch of the new OS for the phone, assuming no big bugs delay it. Sadly, this is only for the international version of the phone, so folks with carrier specific phones may have to wait a bit longer. It's at least nice to see that they are working fast to crank it out. We will keep you informed as soon as we hear anything.

Source: XDA

[furbearingmammal]

It's now a race between the ROM makers and Samsung to see who gets JellyBean out, 100% stable, before the other. I'm betting on Samsung and then the ROM makers ripping the important stuff (radios, etc) to make sure everything in their work is top-flight. I guess this means I'm stuck waiting for at least a couple more months.

[Goose306]

JB on d2vzw variant is more or less complete. Biggest bug is RIL but that's an AOSP issue so even with example code it probably won't help much. (Issue with ICS and JB) Other niggling issues like hotboots or SODs tend to be kernel based and can mostly be cleaned up by tweaking you CPU settings.

Personally by the time Verizon gets done with their "quality testing" I wouldn't be surprised if I'm running Key Lime Pie lol. That's supposed to be out sometime this winter I believe. Which saddens me enormously the carriers have that much of a foot-dragging problem. It always end up seeing people with my phone stock and just think about how much the carriers are making them get left behind on the latest and greatest.

Tapped from my jelly-beaned d2vzw

[spodoc]

Well to defend the carriers and manufactures for a sec, they do have to make sure builds are solid. They can't release nightlies. They can't have sod or MMS not work. They can't have green lines across the bottom of you tube or tell people to accept a 5 second call delay.

That said, they have paid people to do this for a living and should move faster. Also there is clear evidence that they ignore phones well before their EOL (e.g. Bionic).

I don't know why I felt compelled to speak for them this morning. I highly respect what he independent devs do for basically free. I guess I just don't hate the other guys as a result.

[Goose306]

Well to defend the carriers and manufactures for a sec, they do have to make sure builds are solid. They can't release nightlies. They can't have sod or MMS not work. They can't have green lines across the bottom of you tube or tell people to accept a 5 second call delay.

That said, they have paid people to do this for a living and should move faster. Also there is clear evidence that they ignore phones well before their EOL (e.g. Bionic).

I don't know why I felt compelled to speak for them this morning. I highly respect what he independent devs do for basically free. I guess I just don't hate the other guys as a result.

I can understand your point here, and I would go along with that carriers and OEMs are going to take longer - as you said, they can't have the bugs that independent ROMs do have, so that is completely understandable.

But also as you said I find their time frames also to be completely unacceptable. They have entire paid teams of professional software engineers - MONTHS up to a YEAR is unacceptable. It looks like Samsung is doing good tending to their product here by having these builds out fast. JB was in June, SDK was early July I believe. A couple months is acceptable to get a completely stable TW experience. But after they pass it on to the carriers and the carriers take another 4-5 months... unacceptable. Especially considering that independent ROMs are done in a matter of weeks, sometimes by professional software engineers, but many times by hobbyists. And many times its just one or a couple people making them.

Also keep in mind OEMs and carriers have access to the proprietary firmware that developers often do not. Nexus devices are a little different, but for example the biggest issues with JB on the d2vzw has to do either with the RIL or the kernel. The RIL is closed-source, the kernel is open source but hasn't been released by Samsung for the d2vzw variant yet (AFAIK). So what we have now is based on hacks into closed-source or re-building based on decompiling closed-source firmware. If the independent developers had access to the RIL and kernel source, it would tremendously expedite the squashing of the bugs related to it right now. Kernel source will happen, RIL likely never will.

An example from another device - the venerable HTC Thunderbolt. The RIL on that is extremely complicated and archaic, and it doesn't match any RIL for any other existing phone as it was the first LTE device for Verizon. ONE developer COMPLETELY re-wrote the RIL code from SCRATCH to run AOSP ROMs on it. This took a matter of months, but it was ONE person, UNPAID, and they still beat the OEM/carrier to the punch as far as timeline (Thunderbolt is supposed to get ICS and its been back-delayed for MONTHs now - almost a year I believe). Incredible story, ridiculous on everyone else's part though.

[Debian Dog]

A core group of like 7 people wrote most of Windows 3. Everyone else was documentation and apps. i.e. Small groups can always get more done faster when it comes to complicated technical things.

Yep I have run CM10 and other variants on other phones enough to know I will wait months for a rooted and modified version of the JB from Verizon. I need my phone and camera to work as such, reliably, on a daily basis. Kudos to those that work their butt off for the glory of it.

[spodoc]

Kudos to those that work their butt off for the glory of it.

What's incredible is to think of what some guys do with no resources. If they had access to what the paid folks do... well anyways. I for one very much appreciate what the indie devs do.

Thanks guys.

[furbearingmammal]

Part of it is the nature of open source -- hacks and patches to fix bugs brought about by new features are great, but SOMEONE has to come along and make it all work, often by rewriting large parts of it to smooth it out and tweak it so it runs just right.

Part of it is the fact that with one vision that doesn't change daily and lack of a corporate environment they can ignore many of the distractions and problems that then arise. Also, no "Lenny doesn't want to do it" syndrome.

[Lenny]

Why the pick on Lenny ?