Google Employees Are Receiving Ice Cream Sandwich Upgrade

Android Police reports that Google employees have begun receiving the newest version of Android for their Nexus S phones in the form of over-the-air updates. CNET adds a note for the impatient that "the CyanogenMod project to build unofficial versions of Android is working on CM9, the version based on the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code. Early CM9 builds are available in alpha for the Samsung Nexus S and beta for the Samsung Galaxy S."

Comments

ICS on galaxy S

[arkhan_jg]

I've been running ICS on my galaxy S for the last week or so; the onecosmic build rather than cyanogen mod. It all works remarkably well given how fresh it is and lack of official drivers. Video recording doesn't work and the front camera is distorted ;both should get fixed once the nexus source is released.

The launcher is much improved, so much I've felt no need for launcher pro at all. The stock keyboard is a direct competitor to SwiftKey now, and even better in some ways. The back camera is faster, but nowhere near as fast as the galaxy nexus alas - its hardware, not just ICS. The gmail apply and browser are both very fast and nicer to use; bookmark sync with chrome via your google account works well.

Unlike gingerbread, I've had no problems with application launches struggling due to lack of ram, it handles ram much better for inactive apps. The swipe to remove function on both notifications and the task manager is nice. I do miss having the wifi etc buttons on the notification bar though, the widget isn't as useful when you're in an app.

So far, I've only found two apps that don't work yet; copilot live doesn't work, and Astrid crashes when editing tasks. Both will get fixed no doubt. I do like the new TTS engine, it sounds a hell of a lot better than pico.

Overall its all very slick and google have clearly been working on usability a lot for ICS. I have no desire to go back to gingerbread at all. Be good to get the remaining issues ironed out, but it's very usable as is. Oh and no CarrierIQ of course :)

Menu button

[Daetrin]

I'm waiting for the update to add the menu button back to the bottom row (does that set of buttons have an official name?)

I admit that i haven't actually had the chance to try ICS yet, but since hearing that the menu button was going to be removed i've been keeping track of how often i use it, and it's a lot. I'm not looking forward to figuring out where each app keeps its own menu button when they get updated to the "proper" method for ICS. And from the reviews i've read some people have indeed had issues with that. And certainly the lack of a menu button has been rather aggravating on my Nook Tablet.

I can't even figure out why it got removed. They obviously had enough room for four buttons. I guess i can understand wanting to make the task switch function it's own button rather than holding down on the home button, if you assume that most users are uninformed at least. But they didn't need to ditch two buttons, and of the two that they got rid of i use Menu a lot more than Search.