Some of you may be waiting for the upgrade from ICS to JB promised by Moto / Verizon. You may also have heard from friends that they did get an update to JB just a short number of days ago. Our friend aktrazer from www.DroidRZR.com does a nice job of laying out what happened...
With the JB file being leaked, there are a lot of questions flying around on the forums and chat room so I'd like to build an article addressing many of the frequently asked questions!
What happened and why did I not get the OTA?
This question is fairly simple, someone turned the OTA on when they shouldn't have. Motorola caught the error and was able to terminate the OTA update in flight. This is why many of you may have had "Download failed". I have a RAZR MAXX Limited Edition and was able to successfully pull the entire OTA down before they cut it off. My wife's MAXX, however, cut off about halfway through. That should give you an idea of just how quickly they killed the transfers.
Is this the official version?
Yes and no. Yes, in that all sources that I've spoken with have said that this will, more than likely, be the final build that will be pushed OTA [NOT FULLY CONFIRMED YET]. No, in that the OTA push was accidental. Meaning someone pushed the "go, baby, go!" button a little prematurely. Also, according to Tier 2 tech support if your phone received the update in its entirety then consider it a "Christmas present from Motorola".
If I want to update, what should I expect?
Well, you should expect a fully functional JB update that has many improvements, mostly in speed and performance. I've noticed a very significant decrease in boot time and much more fluid swiping.
One thing that's very important to understand is that if you don't follow the instructions to the letter on mattlgroff's thread, you will lose root.
UPDATED: SS3.05 does in fact work on JB.
Are there any known issues or programs that no longer work?
Yes, FoxFi will not work, period. When you try to activate the hotspot, it will simply reboot the OS after it performs "Checking subscription status". For the time being, you can use the built in "VZW Mobile Hotspot".
NOTE: The VZW Hotspot WILL work with unlimited data using the SQLite hack!
What are the prerequisites?
This is VERY IMPORTANT!! You MUST be on system version .211. There is NO WAY around this. If you are on .215, you will need to fastboot back to stock .211.
What else should I know?
There is NO GOING BACK TO ICS at this time. This is for the same reason that we couldn't go back to GB from ICS, the bootloader version and signature changed so if you try, you will probably get a flash failure.
There are NO FASTBOOT FILES FOR JB......yet. Simply put, once you're on JB there a very small safety net so modding may cause issues. Until we get the FB files, there's no "Wiping and trying again".
As always this is all done at your own risk!
The newest version of Chrome is Canary . You might wonder about that name for those that harken back to the days of the saying 'A Canary in a Coal Mine" What's up with CANARY? Well Android Users Google Now is coming to the desktop. Soon I will be able converse with my computer too!
