By Frank McPherson on March 1, 2010 7:55 PM

More Android Upgrade News

Over the weekend we saw reports saying that all existing Android phones not currently running Android 2.1 would be getting an upgrade. Todd wrote about this news this morning, with a healthy amount of speculation about whether all existing Android phones, including the original T-Mobile G1, would get an upgrade. I saw two additional pieces of information regarding Android upgrades during the day.

First, the Tech.Blorge site reports that mobile carriers are working to determine whether the upgrade can be distributed via an over-the-air update. The report goes on to say that because of memory constraints, some existing phones may have to be completely wiped in order to be upgraded. Both pieces of information are contrary to previous updates which have occurred over the air for most carriers and have not actually wiped the devices. In my experience one of the things that set Android apart from Windows Mobile is that operating system upgrades did not wipe out the entire device. Tech.Blorge goes on to say that people with older Android phones, like the G1, may want to really consider whether they want the upgrade because the hardware may not support all of the features of Android 2.1.

In another piece of news, the EuroDroid site has information that a Vodafone UK HTC Magic owner received from HTC, saying that the Android 2.1 upgrade has to come from Vodafone. I think the T-Mobile phones such as the myTouch 3G fall under a similar situation where the ROM ultimately comes from the carrier rather than the handset manufacturer. What this means is that we have to wait for T-Mobile and Vodafone to either release an upgrade for their phones, or tell us that they will not be providing an upgrade.