[Fascinate General] mexiken:
No, you just are clueless as to how an official build gets made, as most Android users here on the forums are....surprising actually, the WM scene on here was/is MUCH more educated, even way back when I was clueless about most things related to ROMS.

I'll explain this ONCE, albeit I've had to enlighten a few others in different topics:

- An OEM (lets say Samsung for ****s and giggles) has a phone. They ask a carrier (lets say Verizon, for some more laughs) if they would like to carry (thus, part of the reason they're called carriers) said model (lets call it the SCH-i500, just pretending ;))

- The carrier says yes. The OEM and carrier now haggle for months over marketing, design, cost, technology, etc.

- The phone is ready to be made. Great. Now, VZW sends a list of what code needs to be put into the phone (radio tech, build specs, BLOATWARE aka preinstalled apps, how much user memory to leave the user, etc)

- The OEM, being the MAKERS of the phone, and knowing EXACTLY how it functions, make the phone to the specs requested by the carrier. They then tell Verizon, "hey, your build is done, the phone is ready"

- The carrier then preps the marketing for release (they could have been doing this in the mean time as well, as they may have agreed to a date, you may have heard of the term, its called a deadline....) and starts the training materials for employees etc.

- The phone is flashed at the factory where the phone is made, and shipped in the carriers boxes (again, to carriers specs)

When an update comes, it works similar:

- The carrier is aware of issues. They are compared against the Android OS timeline (is the phone capable of handling Flash, for example, or the increased GUI that is rumored for Gingerbread, does it fix these issues, or is it a build specific one by the OEM), and request a build update from the OEM.

- The OEM begins building off what they already have (read: EVERYTHING, INCLUDING BLOATWARE, that was there before remains unless the carrier asked something to be removed) and keep making builds until the bugs are squashed and performance remains virtually identical. Then, the OEM tells the carrier, "hey, we're done. Test it out"

- The carrier, depending on who they are, have their own internal testing scheme. Some take days, some take weeks, it just depends on a number of factors. Sometimes, and mostly only VZW does this, (or, at least, thats the one we hear about mostly) rejects the build.

- The OEM goes back 2 steps, and repeats the process.

- Eventually, the build is ready to go (according the the carrier). They then prep the PDF's for customers, and prep the update schedule, etc.

- The build is released.

The part where people USUALLY get leaks is right around, "Hey, were done. Test it out"

People get builds from the OEM, NOT the carrier. They have people in THOSE companies, NOT the carriers. MAYBE, just maybe, some tester is smart enough to know how to dump a build, but, usually not, as the testers of VZW for example, are mostly marketing positions (from what I know). They have no interest in you, me, or the fact that we want a build, etc. They're playing with 2 or 3 different phones at the same, some of which you will never see on Verizon, or not even in that form, etc. They just have to make sure the bugs are squashed, and thats it.

In conclusion, if you think the carriers are these big bad wolves who hog your updates because they take forever stuffing it with bloatware, then you're pretty much a "hate the carriers" fanboy tool (or just uneducated at the very least), because they don't. They DO however hog it for reasons I cannot justify. In either case, the bloatware is on there LONG before the carrier gets it for an update....

Any questions ????