Samsung Promises Ice Cream Sandwich By 1Q12 For SGSII & Galaxy Note
by Jason Inofuentes on December 20, 2011 7:11 AM ESTIn a post on Samsung Tomorrow, Samsung Electronics announced that they would begin rolling out Ice Cream Sandwich to the Galaxy S II variants and Galaxy Note by the end of the first quarter in 2012. This matches up fairly well with the timelines laid out by other manufacturers and they should hopefully meet their targets. Additional devices would be updated soon after and include the Galaxy R, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7 and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus. Stateside, carrier testing will play a role in when we see the updates.
Samsung developers have spent the most time with the Ice Cream Sandwich code, having collaborated with Google for the Galaxy Nexus. They will also be possibly the only manufacturer to develop Ice Cream Sandwich ports on the four current platforms. The Galaxy Nexus exposed them to TI OMAP 4, their Galaxy R and most of their Galaxy Tab line-up brings Tegra 2, most SGSII variants use Exynos with the exceptions being the LTE and T-Mobile variants, which use Qualcomm Snapdragon S3. So many platforms could lead to delays in updating certain devices, though their lead time should help mitigate this.
What won't help in a timely updateis the inclusion of TouchWiz. A leaked alpha ROM circulated last week with Samsung's skin layered atop Android 4.0. While we've praised Samsung's developer wizardry for improving UI speed and browser rendering, the styling and widgets of TouchWiz are a bit more of an acquired taste.
Lastly, the Galaxy Note recently made an appearance at the FCC, sporting AT&T friendly frequencies, so we might see the 5.3" phone/tablet at CES next month. There's also been some speculation that an LTE version of the Note would appear on AT&T. If the rumor is to be believed, it would likely sport the same Qualcomm-based configuration as the Galaxy S II LTE (AT&T's Skyrocket in the US).
Source: Samsung Electronics
Facebook
Twitter
RSS
20 Comments
View All Comments
sigmatau - Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - link
Total BS! You can't even upgrade a iphone 3G to iOS5. Actualy, you couldn't use much of the new functionality of iOS4 on the 3G. Actualy, the last iOS that was fully supported by the 3G was 3.1 or so.Are you talking about the 3GS? Almost same crap, you can't use many of the new features of iOS5 on the 3GS. It is simply not supported.
Talk about a fragmented phone portfolio.
vision33r - Friday, December 23, 2011 - link
I meant iPhone 3GS, every device Apple currently support with iOS 5 is iPhone 3GS and up which includes all generations of iPads.This is a lot better than what Google supports since the Galaxy Nexus S is technically the same generation of the iPhone 4.
The Galaxy Tab, Nexus S, and Galaxy won't be receiving ICS mainly because Touchwiz and Samsung just want to keep selling phones so you need to upgrade.
Boejob - Tuesday, December 27, 2011 - link
How can you compare non-nexus devices with the iPhone products, and also the nexus S is updated by google, not Samsung, there is so touch wiz on it....abhaxus - Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - link
By "every single Apple device they support" you mean, all 3 iPhones that are currently out? Plus the iPad 1 and 2, and iPod Touch 3-5? So basically, 8 products, most of which share significant amounts of hardware. At any given time, each US carrier is offering at least twice that many android handsets, with vastly different hardware between all of them. I happen to think it's impressive given the fragmented nature of the hardware scene that new Android versions make it to old hardware at all.Android users feel too entitled, for sure. I was very pleased when my OG epic got updated to gingerbread, even if happened a year after the OS released, and only a few days before ICS dropped. I'll be happy when ICS comes to my Epic Touch as well. I bought the hardware for the capabilities it had when it I made the purchase, not what could possibly come out in the future.
From what I understand, one of the main reasons Galaxy S devices won't be getting official ICS updates is because of partition sizes for /system that aren't large enough. At least, that's the story on the Epic.
erple2 - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
<quote>From what I understand, one of the main reasons Galaxy S devices won't be getting official ICS updates is because of partition sizes for /system that aren't large enough</quote>Bah. I find that silly, given:
1. Android is based on Linux
2. Linux isn't stupid about how it can allocate space
3. Partition resizing in Linux is (relatively) simple to do
3a. You should be able to do this easily when flashing.
I know, I know. It may not be as simple as that. I'm still waiting for (official) Gingerbread on my Samsung Captivate (Galaxy S, AT&T flavor).
erple2 - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
DANGIT! Could SOMEONE PLEASE put a "quick guide" when you're posting a reply to do things like:bolding
and what have you???
Midwayman - Friday, April 6, 2012 - link
Which is exactly why we have gone from BML to MTD on XDA for many roms. cm9 is nice on a galaxy s varient. you should try it.fashionbook - Tuesday, December 20, 2011 - link
Our Website: ===== www fashion-long-4biz com ====Our main product list is as follows:
3v1lkr0w - Wednesday, December 21, 2011 - link
Just like Samsung and AT&T promised the Infuse 4G would get 2.3 before the end of the year...10 days left, and I don't see it happening. I bet XDA will have ICS for Infuse before the official 2.3 is released.agnar - Wednesday, January 4, 2012 - link
Why would you Ipad guys like to be limited to what you can do? With Android you can customize the device as much as you want. I download music and it sounds better than my Iphone and it can be transferred and played on any device. The games are even better. You never need to sync with your computer. That is just stupid anyway, The only downside is that my kids won't let go of it.