I wonder how many of those not upgrading are Samsung users? One word - "Kies" ( )

I despair of ever being able to upgrade my S3 to Jellybean, never mind Lime Pie - unless I take the (admittedly small) risk of bricking my phone with Odin. Most Samsung users have probably never even heard of Odin and the many who get tired of Kies flicking them the "V"s every time they try and update will give up and stick with their existing version of android.

I'm still on android 2.3 on my Sony Xperia U...apparently its going to get an upgrade even though the hardware is more than powerful enough for Jellybean!

Im 99.9% sure the U has ics now?

What is the issue? I assumed the phone would tell me an upgrade is available, I will press a button and magic will happen. Is that not the case?

Why not just wait the extra couple of weeks until the update is available over the air?

That's what I have done the last couple of times as in no real rush.

It does for most people. However some people do have issues with Kies.

I have 2 brand new laptops and kies runs fine. It ran fine on my old one as well which windows wise was always clean as a whistle. However, it refuses to run on my mums old computer which runs slow as hell and has god knows what on it.

Oh right, so kies is a PC based app. I'll wait to do it over the air.

Yeah. I used it sometimes to back my phone up which worked fine.

OTA i think pops up the same time as Kies. At least it did for the missus S3 the other day.

Kies will require several free GB of HDD space when it upgrades os need to make sure your c: drive has this free.

It does, and an updated version, and an updated version to the updated version

I have the galaxy s2 on contract with 3 still on 2.3, when I go to software update on the phone it says no update found I'm guessing 3 don't do OTA updates?

I'm not sure that the upgrade to ICS was available OTA. Kies is (unfortunately) the way to go. I think that'll be the same for 4.1 as well.

Does Kies have a Mac equivalent or is it Windows only?

Just upgraded my Desire S from 2.3.5 to 4.0.4 using the download on the HTC site, and I love the new version. Is more responsive, and the battery life seems so much better.
From a user perspective I like the data usage counter in the new version, and the Wifi seems to hang onto an access point better now.
Almost feels like having a new phone, having been on Gingerbread since April 2011.
Already got 4.0.3 on my Acer Tablet so am already familiar with the Chrome browser on Android, which was not available on Gingerbread.
Looks like the Desire S will not get Jellybean through legitimate channels.
Only problem is that the display keeps getting unlocked when the phone is in my pocket, which did not happen with 2.3.5, looks like the notification pull-down is active when the screen is locked.

Three do OTA updates, my desire HD is three branded and I got the last update for it, 2.3, ages ago I might add, but it was OTA. You will have to wait until three (if ever) get around to releasing it. That's the problem, Samsung have released the update but you've gotta wait on three to add their crap and then make it available OTA.

You are correct in most cases. Most carriers offer OTA updates. Don't think Orange did though last time I checked.