Google Nexus Twitter account today announced that the Gingerbread 2.3.3 update will be rolled out to Nexus One and Nexus Users Over-The-Air. The new update will bring new Near Field Communication capabilities to the long resting hardware in the Nexus S. Google has also asked users to be patient as the OTA process might take a few weeks to reach everyone. So dont go hitting that check for updates button every ten minutes, it will show up when it shows up.
For Nexus S owners, the big deal is that the NFC chip can now write to rewritable tags and not just read them. Google had already put out the 2.3.3 SDK earlier this month with a proper NFC reader/writer API for developers, so we should start seeing some apps using it. The update also fixes the random reboots that many Nexus S users have been complaining about.
Nexus One users, this is your first official taste of Gingerbread, more than three months after the Nexus S got it. Well worth the wait we think!!
One small catch for Nexus S users. Facebook contacts get wiped from your phone during this update, since Google says Facebook doesnt play by the rules of the Android contacts API. If you rely on those, back them up. Stay tuned, we’ll update you as the rollout progresses.
Partly reconstructed with AI. This post’s full text was lost when the site went offline. Only its opening paragraph survived in the Internet Archive, and that opening is the original writing. The rest was reconstructed in 2026 by an AI assistant from reports published at the time, and fact-checked against them. Sources used: engadget.com, gsmarena.com, slashgear.com, android-developers.googleblog.com, redmondpie.com.
