The status of Android 2.3 working on the Samsung Galaxy S series phones was somewhat in question, but a few tweets from Samsung India doubly confirms that yes, Gingerbread will be available at some point.
This will be a big relief to owners of the Fascinate, Vibrant, Captivate, and Epic 4G who might have been worried that they’d be permanently stuck on Android 2.1. A few of the features that will make their way onto those phones include an improved on-screen keyboard, better battery life through aggressive task killing, SIP internet calling, and a few other things. Of course, that all hinges on whenever Samsung and carriers decide to push out the 2.3 update, but one would expect it to go live well before Android 3.0 Honeycomb is released sometime next year.
Wouldn’t it be nice if there was some surprise NFC capabilities unlocked in some of those older phones? Sure, Samsung’s Nexus S is the only one explicitly with the capabilities, but maybe they had some foresight and included it in their Galaxy S handsets for future use when the software was available. That’s probably more wishful thinking than anything.
[via Unwired View]