Kitkat for Galaxy S4 Zoom

It's a U.S. carrier thing. Asia (SM-G900I), Europe (SM-G900L) already got the update.

EDIT;

Correction. Asia, Europe, Verizon already have 4.4.4 on the S5. So pretty much the entire world except AT&T.

Well seeing that even countries like Mexico and Romania see updates while we see none, and the device is still vulnerable to bug 13678484, back in the box and in the trash it goes.Thanks AT&T and Samsung.

Our problem is that in Romania, for example, there are smaller carriers with smaller customer bases. This means smaller R&D divisions, and less "Not invented here" culture. The carriers in these countries put limited modifications (a.k.a. bloat) into their ROMs, because they simply don't have the resources to do it.

Meanwhile, AT&T is a behemoth that has the resources, and dislikes the notion of simply passing on an Android OS in a Samsung phone over to the customer. Not without first diveting it through their bloatware transmogrifier.

This means more delays, fewer upgrades, more bugs, and continued bloat. Unfortunately, too few customers care about it for it to stop. Those that care gravitate towards T-Mo and Nexus or recent Motorola phones.

If you care, get an unlocked Nexus, or if that's too expensive, get a subsidized Moto next. Less crap.

Mexico and Romania are two of about +20 markets to get updates for the S4 Zoom. But hey, it was one of about 10 phones I owned/purchased in the past year (development work tends to do that). Was also the only one to never see any updates, even the cheap Chinese phones on my desk saw updates.

If neither customers nor ATT cares about things like the FakeID exploit and so on, then be it.

BTW, it doesn't take a genius to preinstall bloat into firmware and test it. A teenager can preinstall it in minutes and testing doesn't take months. Most of the bloat is prebuilt apps that are crammed into multiple devices.

"If neither customers nor ATT cares about things like the FakeID exploit and so on, then be it."

I wish more people cared, and demanded better. But they don't know, and don't care.

"it doesn't take a genius to preinstall bloat into firmware and test it. A teenager can preinstall it in minutes and testing doesn't take months. Most of the bloat is prebuilt apps that are crammed into multiple devices."

True of some bloat, like a Blockbuster movie app. But the carrier also messes with things like camera apps, cloud storage, data trackers, baseband software, roaming policy, wifi offload policy, and a bunch of other stuff they want (and I probably don't). This requires extensive testing and some bug fixing.

The reasons it takes months is that the operator is not in much of a rush, and they have many handsets to interfere with, and it adds up.

So please forgive me for highjacki g this thread but i needed to vent and wanted att dushbags to see thjs as well. Had the s4 for awhile and had it rooted and flashed w great software like cwm recoverry and was freezing att push from titanium backup. However recently refreshed and reset my phn and forgot to freeze att uldates and to my unbelivable anger found that att forced this ztupied kitkat update on my phn without my permission or acknoledgement and did so while i was sleeping. So there goes one for your privacy where att can get into your phn and controll it remotely updating and forcing whatever de heck they want. So {edited for word filter evasion} to you att for killing my beloved root and coolest apps and roms i had on my phn and taking me back to stoneage technology w ur kitkat uldt

Thread hijacker. That point doesn't fit this thread. OTOH. I know what you mean. I've had this S4 for 19 months. I worked many hours to root my phone in the second month. Finally, I was in control of my own phone, could use Titanium Backup to fully protect myself, used root apps, etc. Loved it for about four months.

Then they pushed an update on me and @#$@#$%#$%. By removing my ability to do a full image backup, AT&T STOLE CONTROL OF MY PHONE, AND EXPOSED ME TO RISK OF DATA LOSS. I searched for a new root, but there never is one right after the update push. I just gave up. Next phone will be a Nexus or a Motorola. And maybe T-Mobile.

Push updates should, require a user to hit one OK button do download, and another OK button to install.

What does the S4 have to do with the S4 Zoom. Two completely different devices.

Additionally, from what it sounds like, the user has no business doing what they did and not removing the updater service app from the device. That is a well know "asking for trouble" no no.

Then on top of that, complaining about a device that has received something the S4 Zoom has never seen. Updates.

AT&T Samsung S4 Zoom specs get downgraded to 4.2.2 Jellybean. This is of course after months of wrongly being sold as running 4.4 KitKat when it was not. 

October 29th 2014 (The specs were still saying 4.4 when checked on November 9th)
https://web.archive.org/web/20141029053906/http://www.att.com/cellphones/samsung/galaxy-s-4-zoom.html

November 10th 2014
http://www.att.com/cellphones/samsung/galaxy-s-4-zoom.html#tab2

Sadly, it took me taking this issue to +Android Police, chatting with +Artem Russakovskii, and a threat by them of making AT&T publicly lose face by exposing them to the entire Android community via Android Police. This never should have had to be taken this far and resolved when I approached them in September.

The Official Samsung page still lists the AT&T S4 Zoom as having 4.4 KitKat.
http://www.samsung.com/us/mobile/cell-phones/SM-C105AZWAATT