Guide: Update your Galaxy Nexus from ‘yakjuux’ to ‘yakju’ 4.0.4 – Mac OS X

So you’ve purchased a new Galaxy Nexus phone from Rogers, Telus, Fido, Bell with hopes of having the latest updated; it turns out that there are two different builds, ‘yakjuux’ and ‘yakju’. The main differences between these two builds is that the ‘yakjuux’ build is pushed out by Samsung and the Yakju build is pushed directly from Google.  The benefit from having the ‘yakju’ build is that you will receive the updates much faster as they are being pushed from Google directly.

The current pushed versions of Ice Cream Sandwich:

YAKJUUX – 4.0.2

YAKJU      – 4.0.4

In this tutorial, I am going to show you how to update your build from the ‘yakjuux’ to ‘yakju’ build of Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0.4 on Mac OS X. I am using OS X lion 10.7.3.

Disclaimer: I take no responsibility for any damages you incur to your phone by updating. I am merely writing a how-to guide and everything is done at your own risk.

Make sure you backup anything on your phone as this process will wipe everything.

First you will need to download the files required to install the update. I have taken the required files and zipped them into a single folder to save you some time – the folder contains the fastboot files needed as well as the ‘yakju’ files already extracted. You are going to want to extract the zip file to the Desktop. Leave the files inside the folder they came in as the terminal commands will be written for that folder name. You can download them from http://dl.dropbox.com/u/9654321/Nexus.rar

Inside the “Nexus” folder, you will find the file “fastboot”. Open this up the way you would an application and let is run. It will ‘install’ whats needed. If you don’t, you will receive a permission denied reply when you try to run the fast boot commands.

Next download the Android File Transfer software for mac from http://www.android.com/filetransfer/ and install.

We are going to start by unlocking the boot loader. This is needed so that we can install the ‘yakju’ image files. Note: This is not the same thing as rooting your phone.

First you are going to want to plug-in your Nexus and make sure that the Android File transfer recognizes the phone. If it does, power down the phone with it still being connected to the computer.

Next, boot the phone into recovery mode. To do this, power down the phone and restart it by holding the power and volume up/down buttons until you see the recovery screen.

Next, we will unlock the Bootloader. To do this, open up Terminal(located in your Applications->Utilities folder)and type the following commands.

1.) cd ~/desktop/Nexus        (hit enter after typing each one if these commands)

2.) ./fastboot devices

If everything is installed correctly, you should see xxxxxxxxxx fastboot(the numbers represent your serial number)

3.) ./fastboot oem unlock

4.)Your phone will ask you if you want to unlock the bootloader. Use the volume up button to ‘yes’ and select it by pressing the power button.

NOTE: THIS WILL ERASE ALL DATA ON YOUR PHONE. Your bootloader is now unlocked.

Next we will install the new files:

5.)type ./fastboot flash bootloader bootloader-maguro-primela03.img

6.) type ./fastboot reboot-bootloader

7.) type ./fastboot flash radio radio-maguro-i9250xxla02.img

8.) type ./fastboot reboot-bootloader

9.) type ./fastboot -w update image-yakju-imm76d.zip

At this point, the phone will automatically restart. Once the phone has booted to the factory startup screen, power down again and and boot into recovery mode.

We are going to now re-lock the bootloader. Keep in mind that if you choose to lock it and want to update to a future version, you will need to re-unlock it and thus erase everything again. If you decide that you need to send it in for warranty, you will want to re-lock it.

To lock the bootloader:

In the Terminal, type the following:

1.) type ./fastboot devices

2.) type ./fastboot oem lock

Your bootloader is now locked again.

3.) ./fastboot reboot

Your phone is now updated to the latest firmware, Android 4.0.4. You will now be able to receive the future OTA updates directly from Google.

Guide for updating on a PC will be written shortly.