Samsung has baked a new firmware, JV9, for Galaxy S. This latest firmware upgrades the Galaxy S to android 2.3.3.

Kies only recognise official firmware versions, i.e. those with telco modifications (XSO). Local firmware w/o telco mod (XSP version) is not eligible for the upgrade still.

Check out this page to switch to XSO


JV9 brings mainly comestic changes, following is a list of changes i have observed so far,

• standard android icons on the status bar, instead of Samsung typical blue icons
• new icons on the notifications tray
• alphabet bar in phonebook as been reverted to the full list
• daily briefing widget has been broken into 4 seperate widgets now
• wallpaper picker now has 2 size templates to choose from
• android text selection cursor has replaced the samsung cursor
• "ask on connection" in USB settings has been removed
• OTA Software Update has been built into the firmware now

In terms of performance wise, the phone seems a lot faster now. One noticable speed up is the downloading and installing of apps over market, the stall has been reduced significantly. But this is a fresh update, so only time will tell if samsung has really fixed the lag issue.

First run of the GPS seems to give a slightly better results too. Runkeeper manages to track my position accurately for most part of the trip. Somewhat puzzling is that both readings suggested that I have crossed the road along Tampines Central 2, which I have not.


All in all, JV9 seems to be a nice upgrade. Onto gingerbread now.

While your phone is powered off,

1. Press and hold [Volume Up], [Home], and [Power] buttons together.
2. Release them when the Galaxy S boot up animation is shown.
3. Select "wipe data/factory reset" to hard rest. Use the [Volume Up], [Volume Down] to navigate through the list, and [Home] to select.
4. Lastly, select "Yes -- delete all user data" to confirm the hard reset

Remember how dell makes customising your own pc ever so easy?

Now someone has done the same for building your own roms for galaxy s.

Head out to http://romkitchen.org/ to build your own rom now!

Press *#272*HHMM# for android 2.1, or *#272*IMEI# for android 2.2 in the dialer, where HHMM is hour and mins in 24hr format of the current time

Singtel users choose SIN

Starhub users choose STH

M1 users choose MM1

for naked sgs rom, choose XSP

Select your option and click the install button to complete the setup.