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I am not lucky enough to get an OTA update of JB yet, Verizon Nexus, but I never had a problem with OTA updates on my Droid X. And updating to the leaked JB build for the Nexus went very nicely.
How many of the problems with my OTA update to ICS on the D4 were directly related to Verizon being involved. It is too bad that Verizon was able to position themselves between Samsung/Goolge and the Nexus on their network. If it wasn't a company phone, I'd switch to Sprint at this point, just because I think it is about time that Verizon started to feel a pinch to let them know that they can't keep doing this with update cycles on the devices on their network. I like Verizon - but they'll push the limits as long as they can on issues like this.
Could not have gone more smoothly. I did a little trick to "force" it to go rather than wait for Google to initiate it, but it was just clearing one bit of cache. Then it downloaded and installed as neat as a pin. ICS was already a strong performer on my phone, but Jelly Bean is essentially flawless, and I'll never go back to a carrier-hobbled phone again.
Unfortunately the Galaxy Nexus Sprint is among the few "non carrier hobbled" smart phones on the market. The Verizon Galaxy Nex is still carrier crippled.
This leaves an unpleasant choice for a lot of consumers who want Verizon's network but don't want Verizon's device restraints.
Honestly, if I were not on a company plan, I'd probably have moved to a Nexus on Sprint for this exact reason. The difference with Jellybean running on my lightly skinned TF300 versus Jellybean running on my Nexus 7 isn't outrageous, but it is noticeable. The pure Google experience runs better. The Nexus 7 has a slight edge in stability and performance in this regard.
This leaves an unpleasant choice for a lot of consumers who want Verizon's network but don't want Verizon's device restraints.
Honestly, if I were not on a company plan, I'd probably have moved to a Nexus on Sprint for this exact reason. The difference with Jellybean running on my lightly skinned TF300 versus Jellybean running on my Nexus 7 isn't outrageous, but it is noticeable. The pure Google experience runs better. The Nexus 7 has a slight edge in stability and performance in this regard.
The update process was smooth enough, but the phone is less responsive, less stable, and uses more battery than before. With Samsung's TouchWiz, ICS and Gingerbread look very similar and I mostly regret doing the update. Some folks at the various forums have suggested a factory reset, as you did on your Droid. I did not think it would help much and have not done so, but I hear this more and more so I may have to hunker down and do it despite the obvious pain involved in reconfiguring the device from scratch.
ICS *should* be more stable and quicker than Gingerbread. If it isn't - you've got a couple of options. Now that it is working right, I wouldn't go back willingly.
1: It could be a problem with particular apps not playing well with ICS. This can be a nightmare to track down, and was probably my problem with the D4. The fact that you're hearing reports of people clearing it up with a clean install makes me think this is the most likely culprit.
2: Something with the Samsung skin might be a problem with ICS. That would be a worst case scenario.
I'd recommend you back up all of your critical data to SD or via USB to a PC, backup any critical apps using something like Astro File Manager to .apk files, and just bite the bullet. I know it is less than ideal, and hopefully we see improvements in this in the future. I tend not to blame Google or the manufacturers so much - they have a vested interest in making this process less painful. I think the major roadblock with updates remains the wireless carriers.
Sorry to hear you're having a difficult process too. One of the things that got cut in editing on this article, that wasn't really relevant, is that the same week I gave an iOS guy a bunch of grief because he had to factory reset his iPhone to get a ringtone from one device to another. I included this in the original story because I wanted to illustrate that all of the mobile platforms have their struggle with these kind of challenges. There just wasn't a good way to fit it into the main article without having it come across as a "Oh yeah, well, iOS is no better, so nyah..." fanboy kind of statement.
Best of luck.
1: It could be a problem with particular apps not playing well with ICS. This can be a nightmare to track down, and was probably my problem with the D4. The fact that you're hearing reports of people clearing it up with a clean install makes me think this is the most likely culprit.
2: Something with the Samsung skin might be a problem with ICS. That would be a worst case scenario.
I'd recommend you back up all of your critical data to SD or via USB to a PC, backup any critical apps using something like Astro File Manager to .apk files, and just bite the bullet. I know it is less than ideal, and hopefully we see improvements in this in the future. I tend not to blame Google or the manufacturers so much - they have a vested interest in making this process less painful. I think the major roadblock with updates remains the wireless carriers.
Sorry to hear you're having a difficult process too. One of the things that got cut in editing on this article, that wasn't really relevant, is that the same week I gave an iOS guy a bunch of grief because he had to factory reset his iPhone to get a ringtone from one device to another. I included this in the original story because I wanted to illustrate that all of the mobile platforms have their struggle with these kind of challenges. There just wasn't a good way to fit it into the main article without having it come across as a "Oh yeah, well, iOS is no better, so nyah..." fanboy kind of statement.
Best of luck.
GSM Galaxy Nexus - to 4.1.0 and 4.1.1 - smooth as Butter (pun well intended) - my phone
SGS2 Skyrocket to 4.0.4 - failed in the middle of the first try, went smooth on second try. Had to hard reboot phone to get all the apps to work as intended. Had issues with a couple of AT&T apps. The hard reboot fixed. - my sons phone
SGS2 to 4.0.4 - OTA failed, failed, and failed. Tried the tethered update: failed to. Finally had to side load via SD card. - my wife's phone
Nexus 7 - came with JB and works spooky cool. Thing almost reads my mind at times. - my tablet.
Transformer to ICS (original model) - Smooth and completely uneventful. Have noticed a couple of quirks but both battery life and usability have dramatically increased. - my sons tablet.
That said, with the latest versions, my hope for good OTA updates has been restored. It does seem to be mainly a carrier issue. The one unlocked off contract device was awesome along with the tablet.
SGS2 Skyrocket to 4.0.4 - failed in the middle of the first try, went smooth on second try. Had to hard reboot phone to get all the apps to work as intended. Had issues with a couple of AT&T apps. The hard reboot fixed. - my sons phone
SGS2 to 4.0.4 - OTA failed, failed, and failed. Tried the tethered update: failed to. Finally had to side load via SD card. - my wife's phone
Nexus 7 - came with JB and works spooky cool. Thing almost reads my mind at times. - my tablet.
Transformer to ICS (original model) - Smooth and completely uneventful. Have noticed a couple of quirks but both battery life and usability have dramatically increased. - my sons tablet.
That said, with the latest versions, my hope for good OTA updates has been restored. It does seem to be mainly a carrier issue. The one unlocked off contract device was awesome along with the tablet.
Installation smooth and swift. Unfortunately the phone then started sporadic reboots - sometimes 12-20 in a continuous roll, sometimes run beautifully for days. The eventual fix was the factory reboot - after a supplier engineer observed that not all packages had been installed correctly during the update. He replaced the most common ones to no avail - Phone worked great afterward until it was stolen,
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