Users of various Samsung Galaxy, HTC, Nexus, LG, Motorola and other manufacturer's smartphones who don't want to update to Android 5.0 Lollipop have an option to remain with KitKat 4.4. Here's how to set up your phone to reject the update.
Many owners of smartphones manufactured by Samsung, HTC, LG, Motorola and others have been experiencing various performance problems since upgrading their OS to Android 5.0 Lollipop. Among the issues being reported are overheating, battery drain, freezing of apps, missed notifications and emails, and more.
Many of these Android 5.0 Lollipop issues are frustrating smartphone owners to the extent that they are expressing a desire to return their devices to the prior operating system, KitKat 4.4. Though there is no official way to actually return your smartphone to an older Android operating system once it has updated, motivated users have come up with unofficial instructions for doing so for many of the top smartphones experiencing issues.
But what about those who haven't yet received the Android 5.0 Lollipop update on their phone? Many users who have read or heard about the various performance issues surrounding the update are wary of the new OS and would prefer to stick with KitKat, at least for now. Others simply prefer the older user interface and want to remain with the familiar. Frustrated consumers have complained that even though they didn't want the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, they woke up one morning to find it automatically installed on their device.
There are two simple ways that smartphone and tablet owners can prevent the automatic updating of their device to Android 5.0 Lollipop. The best and most practical way to do so is to ensure your device does not have the necessary storage space to download the upgrade. When your device tries to download the Android 5.0 Lollipop update, it will be unable to, and users will instead receive a notification asking them to delete some material from their device or move it to an expansion card to free up enough space to load the new OS.
The Android 5.0 Lollipop update is slightly larger than 1 GB, so having less than 1 GB of storage space on your smartphone is a guaranteed way to prevent the update. Try not to fill up the phone completely, leave a little under 1 GB. If you have a lot of free space now, you can just download some large media files such as movies or transfer them from another device. Just make sure that if you delete anything from your phone, you don't accidentally free up enough space, because the software update will continue trying to load indefinitely.
A second, less practical, but effective way to prevent the update from loading is to disable Wi-Fi on your device. Obviously if you use Wi-Fi regularly this is not viable, but for those who almost always use their cellular connection it's another way to stop the update from loading, as Android 5.0 Lollipop software updates generally require a Wi-Fi connection.
Many users are willing to update to Lollipop eventually, but don't want to upgrade in the first wave where problems and bugs are still being addressed and corrected. Samsung has recently announced that it will be releasing various micro updates to the Galaxy S5 for this reason, and at some point many of the reported problems and issues on various devices will be fixed. Users may then feel more comfortable using the new OS, in which case they simply need to free up enough space on their device or enable Wi-Fi to receive the update.
