Google Employees Are Receiving Ice Cream Sandwich Upgrade 71
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."
Working on SGS Vibrant for T-Mobile just fine... (Score:5, Informative)
The build I found here: http://forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1338636 [xda-developers.com] 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.
Re:Somewhat disappointing.. (Score:5, Informative)
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.
Re:ICS on galaxy S (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:5, Informative)
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 (Score:4, Informative)
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 [android.com]. Works here on Galaxy Nexus.
Re:obligatory (Score:3, Informative)
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.
Re:ICS on galaxy S (Score:5, Informative)
Not at all. I'm using this build [multiupload.com] (the one including google talk) from this post [xda-developers.com]. 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 [xda-developers.com] 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 [xda-developers.com]; 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 [xda-developers.com] (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 (Score:4, Informative)
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.