How to check for Android updates on your Android smartphone

Android has came a long way after being launched in 2008  to becoming the second most used smartphone OS only lagging behind Apple iOS. Starting from Android 1.0 to Android 3.0 Honeycomb Android has gone drastic changes to improve end user usability and smartphone efficiency. The most of the major smartphone producing companies excluding Nokia and Apple,Samsung  prefer Android as their OS.

Automatic Android updates

One of the best features of Android is their regular updates and their easy availability and installation. These updates happen in the background and are downloaded as soon as they are “pushed” by Google. Now as there are so many Android smartphones and tablets available in the market not all of them receive the update together and each one of them has to wait till they are made available for the particular device or they can manually check for the updates. This is quite similar to Windows updates functionality found for desktops where downloads are done but user permission is asked before installing the updates.
Until it receives no response from the user it places a notification of the home screen prompting the user to install the update. When the updates are installed the user can see from the device information to confirm if the updates have been installed.

Checking for Android updates

1. Enter the menu and go to the settings option.
2. In the bottom of the settings menu list you will find a “About phone” option. Here you will find the version and build of the Android running on your phone.
3. Click on the “System updates” option to see if any updates are available. If there are any updates available then you will be asked for confirmation to download the update and install it.

Creating a shortcut for Android update

1. There is a application available for creating a shortcut to directly check for any update from your homescreen. This app is called AnyCut.
2. For installing this app go the Android market and search for “AnyCut” and install it.
3. Create a shortcut of your phone’s desktop
4. Choose “AnyCut” from the list and choose “Device Info” as the “Activity.”
5. Scroll to the end of the list and press “Check for updates.”
6. Now when the process is complete just go to the homescreen where you will be prompted to install the update

It is always suggested to install any official updates that are available as many times these updates contains fixes to security vulnerability found within the OS. For those who don’t want for the automatic updates launched can easily use this manual update feature.

Posted in: Android