Tuesday, March 03, 2009

T-Mobile UK G1 updated to Firmware RC9 ( no latitude or voice search? )

The news of the latest UK firmware for the T-Mobile G1 has been spreading across the internet this morning. So I put my brave hat on, downloaded the firmware file from here and got on with the update.

A few different sites have published the guide to manually upgrading your G1, it goes like this:

  1. Grab the RC9 update from here

  2. Rename it to update.zip, and place it in the root of your Micro SD

  3. Turn off your G1, then turn it back on by holding the Home+End (House key + On key) keys until you see an icon popup after the T-Mobile G1 logo.

  4. From the icon screen, open the keyboard and hit Alt+L. This will display the log saying what is happening

  5. Now press Alt+S to begin the update. Remember, the update needs to be in the root of the Micro SD card and needs to be named update.zip.

  6. Once it finishes, just follow the onscreen instructions and press Home+Back to finish.

  7. The G1 will reboot a few times, showing various different icons, flashing different parts of the firmware. Be patient


If all went well, you should now be running the latest update, RC9. To make sure all your hard work wasn’t for nothing, hit Menu > Settings > About Phone > scroll to Build Number. You should see RC9 at the bottom.

So what do I have that is new? Firstly and most disappointingly I can't seem to get Google Latitude working, Google Maps launches but there are no obvious latitude options :-( If I go in the browser to google.com/latitude it says I have it and offers to launch it, but then Google Maps just launches. I'll double check this later and see if I can figure it out.

Secondly I now have the updated Marketplace, it tells me when updates for my apps are available.
Thirdly there is a new icon called 'Sim Toolkit' offers services from the operator like Horoscopes and football scores, I can't see that I'll ever use this.


Fingers crossed I can get latitude working as that was my main reason for the upgrade, there is some hope as Google thinks I have it installed. If I do I'll update this post.

8 comments:

doomsway said...

I also got RC9 OTA last night/this morning and can't get latitute to work. also missing is voice search.
i call shenannegans!

Adonis said...

Have you noticed how the update says its ( RC9-from-TMUK-RC8 ) does this make any sense? And why?

Unknown said...

Adonis, just because it is a patch update from T-Mobile UK RC8 to RC9, not a complete firmware flash.

Unknown said...

Hey GeekYouUp, I got my update earlier this morning at 9:30, haven't used Google Maps as of yet - only got my G1 on Sunday!
Hope you can get it working again =)

Unknown said...

It looks like latitude has been disabled. The Google Maps seems to be the right version but no latitude.

With the introduction of "Check for New Updates" in the settings I am wondering if T-Mobile UK are planning more frequent updates similar to the US. Fingers crossed!

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