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

Ice Cream Sandwich?

[ynp7]

I'm allergic to dairy, you insensitive clods!

obligatory

[Anonymous Coward]

Don't forget to load Carrier IQ folks.

Re:obligatory

[CodeReign]

This comment is less funny when you realize that Nexus phones are packaged by Google and not the carrier. Google has not ever included CarrierIQ. Though I'm sure they have more than enough tracking in there.

Warty Warthog

[slackware 3.6]

Bet it tastes better than warty warthog.

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 :)

Re:ICS on galaxy S

[alendit]

Using Cyanogenmod 9 (personal preference, onecosmic's is awesome too :) Alphas for 5 days and can largely share the experience. The hardware accelerated UI is awesome. Some issues, primarily with cameras and battery life isn't as great as with the stock firmware, but nothing you wouldn't expect from a early custom rom.

And if you are already using some custom rom with clockworkmod, installing CM9 is as imbarassingly easy as copying the newest build on the internal sd and flashing it via recovery or the Rom Manager.

Can't wait, till the new build will be available directly in the Rom Manager.

Re:ICS on galaxy S

[shutdown -p now]

do miss having the wifi etc buttons on the notification bar though, the widget isn't as useful when you're in an app.

The toggles in notification shelf were never in stock builds, it's a Samsung thing. And yes, it's quite convenient. That said, since Honeycomb, apps can put pretty much arbitrary widgets into the notification area, and it's also there in ICS. So writing an app that looks exactly the same way is now possible without modding the phone - just install from the Market. So it's only a matter of time before someone writes this, and I expect it to take a few days at most.

There's one other crucial thing, when comparing this to Honeycomb (on tablets, obviously): the insane lag when typing anything in a textarea in the browser is gone - something that had always prevented me from surfing Slashdot from my Transformer tablet. Since it was always clearly a software issue, I expect that the fix is going to apply to all devices when they update to ICS - including tablets. Which means that I can finally ditch my iPad.

Also, at the moment, there's no Flash on ICS, though Adobe has promised to update it till the end of the year.

One more thing of note: it is the first (at least among those I know of) smartphone OS that has a special-purpose button to switch between apps, down there alongside "Back" and "Home". Android was always a true multitasking OS, unlike some others *cough* but now they're really in-your-face about it. About time.

Re:ICS on galaxy S

[shutdown -p now]

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.

Actually, it seems that I was too pessimistic in my estimates. Try this. Works here on Galaxy Nexus.

Re:ICS on galaxy S

[arkhan_jg]

Not at all. I'm using this build (the one including google talk) from this post. It's a small variant of the beta2 build of ICS by onecosmic with working TTS and fixed DPI, along with a compatible phone firmware for ICS included.

That's in the main thread about this ICS build, which has the vanilla beta2, as well as instructions on how to flash. Note, it does require rooting and installing a custom kernel, and you will need to back up your apps and data (i.e. phone call records, sms etc) using titanium or my backup pro if you want to put them back after flashing ICS. There are also a couple of scripts you need to run to make the external microSD writable, and enable USB mounting after flashing; sorry, don't have them bookmarked, will try and find them later. They're not essential though. You may also need the right kernel from the first post if you have a variant of the i9000, i.e. the i9000b or the like.

The other option, especially if you're not already a veteran rom flasher on the galaxy S, is to go with the cyanogenmod9 version from here; it's caught up with onecosmic's build in terms of what's working, and is a bit easier to get working.

In both cases, you'll need to copy the rom (and maybe the kernel) zip to the internal SD, via USB mount for example, then install a gingerbread custom kernel via odin to give you clockwork mod, that then lets you go in and flash ICS from the internal SD from recovery mode.

If you've not done that before, best to flash this kernel (cf-root) using odin - instructions and links for it are in the post, just follow the guide on flashing via odin/download manager. That roots your phone, along with giving you clockwork mod in recovery while still keeping the rest of your stock rom intact. You don't need to faff about with ext4 or flashing a custom gingerbread rom, as you'll be going straight to ICS. Once you have clockwork mod though (which is included in the ICS builds), you don't need odin again, you can always flash new updates via recovery mode which makes life simpler.

Finally, make sure you're already on gingerbread (2.3) official or custom rom first; going from froyo to gingerbread updated the bootloaders, and I don't think a gingerbread kernel will work on a froyo stock.

Re:ICS on galaxy S

[Beyond_GoodandEvil]

And if you are already using some custom rom with clockworkmod, installing CM9 is as imbarassingly easy as copying the newest build on the internal sd and flashing it via recovery or the Rom Manager.
Assuming you aren't using a Nexus One or other phone w/ small system partitions, otherwise you need to repartition your phone to install the current alphas.

Working on SGS Vibrant for T-Mobile just fine...

[Thantik]

The build I found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1338636 with the kernel for the SGS Vibrant works 99%. Only thing that doesn't work is the camcorder, but I never use that anyways. It's well past alpha quality, and is usable as a daily driver. I've been using it for easily a week now. Keep a 301kOHM jig around though, can't get into download mode otherwise.

Somewhat disappointing..

[tycoex]

I bought a Nexus S for the sole intention that I didn't want to bother with rooting my phone and whatnot, but I still wanted to get the Android updates right away.

I'm somewhat disappointed that CM9 will beat Google to updating my phone. I wouldn't mind rooting my phone to put ICS on it, but I'd rather not have to re-install everything. It seems you have to be rooted to make a full backup, and I need to make a backup before I root, so I'm pretty much stuck on stock.

If CM has the update before the Nexus phones do, then what is the point of buying a nexus phone? I might as well get whatever phone has the nicest hardware and just put CM on it if I can't rely on the updates being quicker from Google than CM.

Re:Somewhat disappointing..

[arkhan_jg]

The nexus s will still be the first phone to get an official update; everyone else will be months away yet. While cyanogen have usable builds, you do have to be somewhat savvy to root and flash the rom - official roms are much easier, and it will all work, not just most of it.

Given it's going out to employees, the final public release can't be far off now. Cyanogen mod is great and all, but the gingerbread version on my galaxy S always had a few minor issues, so I stuck to modified stock Samsung roms.

Personally I'd rather have the nexus s than my galaxy S, very similar hardware (nexus s wasn't out when I upgraded) but no touchwiz or other crap. Even though I do have ICS now, for the longer run not having to deal with oem modifications would be worth it.

Employee Perks

[Nick Fel]

In my feed reader this read as "Google Employees are Receiving Ice Cream". No wonder everyone wants to work for them.

Re:Employee Perks

[vencs]

In other words, the 1% get ICS while the 99% have to get a colorless, flammable, highly poisonous gas made by oxidizing hydrogen cyanide!
This is not fair, occupy Google!!!

--
Three edits to get the sig right. Thats' how smart I am.

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.

Re:Stay with GB

[RobbieCrash]

Apparently, my comment was too subtle. The increases in performance and stability going from CM7.1 to CM9A11 is night and day. ICS adds boatloads of paint, and a huge helping of new features and useful improvements in UI and system management. Additionally, battery life on my Nexus S has gone from about 10 hours max to 18.

Can't wait to see the official OTA.