Samsung has been busy releasing Android 4.3 updates for its flagship devices for the last few weeks. The next few weeks won’t be different too. After the Galaxy S4 and the Galaxy S III, the Galaxy Note II is all set to receive its long awaited update. The device has been stuck on the same Android version it shipped with for a year, Android 4.1.2. That is bound to change very soon.
We’ve already had two builds of the Galaxy Note II test firmware leak out to the public. Indeed there have been a clique of carefully selected users who have been testing more recent builds of the firmware and I happen to know one of them. Most recently, a Note II user in India walked into a service centre and was able to update to 4.3 right away. This means that Samsung is already done with both internal and external testing and that the firmware is ready. Samsung has reportedly been silently releasing the update to its service centres worldwide where there are no strict carrier enforcements so that there is readily available technical support when the OTA updates hit their servers any time now. This is not strange since for all the time that I have known about Samsung service centres this has always been the case: any user can pop in and get an update if it is available for their device either by themselves or with the help of the service centre’s stuff. If you are a Galaxy Note II owner, you’ve not been forgotten, expect the update (MJ9) at your nearest official Samsung service centre, Samsung Kies on your PC and the update tab on your device very soon. While we’re not sure of the exact OTA and Kies rollout hour, we could be talking about the next few hours or the next few days.
As is the case with the 4.3 testers who are not mandated to share any details publicly, the guy who first broke this news has since pulled down the tweet further fuelling speculation that the update should be out sooner than we expected.
As you can see from the screenshots below courtesy of the same guy and Sammobile, Android 4.3 for the Galaxy Note II will bring with it a full Samsung Knox implementation unlike the Galaxy S III update that did not include Knox. Also, tabbed browsing, as seen in the earlier leaked test firmwares, will make its way. There are also all the updated apps like S Note and Samsung Apps. I’m not certain if Samsung Wallet will be bundled with this update too. Also, as you can notice, the Google apps like Photos also get an update to the new Play framework so that they are at par with the current Google apps as updated in Android 4.4 KitKat.
