That whole Samsung/Behold II/Android 2.x drama we talked about yesterday just took a turn for the worst. Ya, Samsung pretty much hates you guys — you guys as in the one’s who picked up a Behold II with the belief Samsung was actually serious about supporting it longer than six months.

Unfortunately, speculation that Sammy was cuttin’ and runnin’ has been confirmed with an official tweet and forum reply to disgruntled end users stating the highest they’ll be able to upgrade is Android 1.6. Ouch. Step inside for the official replay their tweet is referring too…

A kick in the nether regions it is. Anyone realizing a sour taste forming in their mouth yet? Queue the lawsuits in 3..2..

AndroidHeadlines

You know a phone isn’t that great when it’s released with old, outdated software. Unfortunately, in the Android world the practice is all too common. What’s worse however is buying a phone with the aforementioned outdated software and promises of near future upgrades only to find out the opposite is true, that the company who swooned you with flashy advertising was lying and is unwilling to right their wrong.

Samsung has a problem…

According to numerous replies from Samsung to countless Behold II owners’ emails, the 2.x upgrade that was promised many times over — In a video even! — is somewhere between “a long ways off” and “never”.

Now if Samsung had never mentioned any cold hard info or marketed on if/when a 2.x update would be released, no harm no foul. But seeing as how Samsung ran a promotional video and advertised the hell out of future 2.x upgrades being one of the Samsung Behold II’s biggest features, the picture becomes a little clearer.

Of course, the most obvious solution (rooting and upgrading yourself) won’t work either. Samsung has never released all of the source code, therefore the devs can’t reverse engineer 2.x ROM’s back to the Behold II.

It’s a pretty sad day when Samsung is basically telling all present and future customers that they stop supporting their products with updates less than 6 months out. Adding insult to injury, repeated emails from various Behold II owners have garnered responses, basically telling end users to “Leave them [Samsung] alone.” and even going as far to shift the blame onto T-Mobile, directing angry customers to T-Mo’s inbox. Classy, real classy.

The understandably angry Behold II customers are trying to get a petition going, arguing their case for one of three items:

1. A refund
2. A new Android 2.x handset
3. An upgrade of any 2.x flavor

The demands seem more than reasonable to me seeing as how Samsung overpromised and under delivered — essentially lying. The proof can be found in the original Behold II promotional video that can be found here. Samsung meanwhile has yanked all remnants of this video for obvious reasons.

For the record, the Samsung Behold II was released in November of 2009. Way to go Samsung.

**Are you an disgruntled Behold II owner? Sign the petition here.

Update 5/28/10: Samsung has given an official response, confirming that they did in fact lie and leave customers to rot and that Android 1.6 will be the highest they can upgrade. The tweet below is only part 1. Follow the rest of the douchery right over here.

Engadget > Android Headlines

Hey, if your biggest, baddest competition is claiming seemingly impossible feats of reality (such as servicing more countries than there actually are), your company had better come up with something bigger and better. Right? Just like Verizon can’t count, AT&T itself seems to have flunked kindergarten math and geography as they too have a case of the 220+ coverage-itis.

Once again, need we remind both parties that there are not 220+ “countries” in the world. You see, it’s not quite as easy as that. There are several places like the UK which itself is loosely considered a country but is actually made up of several smaller countries. And their definitions of a country aren’t the same as another continent’s/societies.

It’s really a big fluster cluck if you ask me, and not worth arguing over. Looks like these carriers need new marketing tag lines, huh?

Seeing as how there’s so much debate over how many actual countries there are, let’s hear a guess from you….

Consumerist

After AT&T CEO Ralph de la Vega was questioned over the recent approval of Slingplayer for iPhone after months of neglect and abandonment by the network, Ralph claimed that negotiations between Big Blue and Sling allowed both parties to tweak the app so it was even more efficient. Sounds like a nice little story with butterflies, fuzzy things, and rainbows. Only problem is it didn’t happen.

When Ars Technica reached out to Sling for comment on the recent statements and events, Sling Media’s John Santoro responded, saying that “AT&T never discussed any specific requirements with us”. ZING! Of course, that’s not to say Sling isn’t optimized. As John goes on further, he reiterates how network optimization is built into Sling from the get go so that it automatically adjusts performance and quality based on the network’s signal and strength.

So why lie about it? Beats me. But it sure makes for a good laugh now and an even better one later on down the road when we get to see AT&T PR try to clear up the confusion. Happy Friday everyone.

Ars Technica

Not content with paying off government and coating them with lies, it appears AT&T has moved on to us bloggers and the tech community as their next target. Only problem is, we have a brain and are capable of seeing past their PR nonsense. Everyone knows AT&T’s network blows epic amounts of private parts. From the north to the south to the east and to the west, the experience is the same. Their network is riddled with holes, over-taxed towers, and even the possibility of an improperly configured network. Naturally, because of all of the negative criticism, AT&T has been working in overdrive on damage control. After their not uncommon though sleazy attempt at “rallying the troops” to protest any Net Neutrality bills, AT&T is moving to us, the bloggers and individual citizens to spread their PR BS full of lies and false promises. What exactly am I going on about? Continue on. In response to an article IntoMobile’s Stefan’s Constantinescu wrote about AT&T having in improperly configured network, a few feathers were ruffled. The resulting message from AT&T:

Hey Stefan,

Saw your post and wanted to get you a response – we don’t think there’s any merit to the observation you passed along. Would you mind adding this to the post? Feel free to attribute to me or the company …

Also, noted your comment about cell sites – we’ve talked publicly quite a lot about the improvements we’re making to the network (7.2 rollout, increased backhaul to our sites, etc.) – but we also said we plan to add more than 2,000 sites this year.

Thanks,
Seth Bloom
FH for AT&T Corporate Communications

“The AT&T wireless network is designed and engineered to deliver the highest possible levels of capacity and performance. Our standing as the nation’s fastest 3G network is validated by multiple third-party testing organizations on the basis of millions of drive tests annually.”

“We believe that recent online speculation regarding AT&T wireless network configuration settings is without foundation. Allegations in these posts regarding packet loss network settings are incorrect.”

Are AT&T employees, in this case their PR employees that incompetent? All they need to do is spend 10 seconds on Google or any AT&T forum to see people are fed up with their failure of a network. The tech community is a place that they will find very little sympathy if any. Yet they have the nerve to talk up their sub-par network and suggest we bloggers edit our criticisms and talk up their failures? Words escape me. Stephan’s response was classic — putting them right in their place and basically telling them to STFU:

I’m not going to copy and paste your marketing message to my blog post. Good luck getting other blogs to follow your request.

In a way, AT&T sort of succeeded because I reposted their message into my post. But as you can see, it’s far from praising as I’m using it to further degrade their network and credibility. I may be mean. I may be too excited about this. But I’m far from the only person who hates AT&T and their pathetic attempts to hide their shortcomings — of which their are many. Are you just as disgusted or are you becoming desensitized? I keep telling myself that with enough of these little “incidents” becoming widely known, maybe AT&T will wise up and learn when it is and isn’t ok to blindly defend yourself.

AT&T take note: Your network sucks. Your policies suck. Your PR’s cookie cutter comments and attempts to get intelligent people buy in to your propaganda suck.

IntoMobile

{Image Source}