By The folks at Samsung first denied original Galaxy Tab and Galaxy S users a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich and, as you might imagine, it created quite the uproar. It couldn’t be a hardware performance issue due to the Nexus S getting Ice Cream Sandwich with near identical performance hardware. No, it was a space issue and you can probably guess the biggest culprit – TouchWiz.
Thankfully, there’s still a chance (albeit not a very favorable one) that the devices will still be able to get Ice Cream Sandwich. Samsung heard the complaints from users of their 2010 flagship devices and have gone back to say that they will continue to find solutions for getting Android 4.0 up on these devices.
Debloating or completely eliminating TouchWiz would be ideal for users, of course, but Samsung likely won’t or can’t do that. They have to commit to providing the same experience with 4.0 that they did out of the box.
Of course, they could go the HTC route and allow carriers to defer users to the market for specific TouchWiz apps. That’s all wishful thinking at this point, but the chance is definitely still there. Fingers crossed. [via The Verge]
Well this is good news for galaxy users like me.
This is another reason I hate manufacturers customising UIs. Yes, they may be better than the stock UI but they introduce delays to getting updates on the phone and sometimes cause updates to be skipped altogether. Samsung should show commitment to the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab devices but updating those devices (even if they have to introduce a lightweight touch wiz update). For newer devices, I’d like to see manufacturers drop these custom UI aspects and help/encourage/support Google with developing the stock UI to make it better. May be, Google can introduce an easier way for manufacturers to apply themes and UI customisations that make it easy to apply between Android OS versions.
I like the HTC proposed route (although its not eliminating sense yet). Make the widgets, apps, etc exclusive to those devices on the market and you might still get some differentiation while still allowing your device to be like a Google reference device.
>Of course, they could go the HTC route and allow carriers to defer users to the market for specific TouchWiz apps.
QK – since when does HTC do this? and how? or where has it been proposed? i’ve seen nothing about this and i would think it would be a HUGE story.
Well it was not directly HTC, rather a carrier (which one doesn’t come to mind right now but it was for an upgrade to the dated Desire). This was only one case in many, though.
Yeah I didn’t see anything regarding that. Where is that article at?
wOW
If this does go through Galaxy S will be the first and probably only Android high end device to have recieved 3 Full firmware updates. Froyo -> Gingerbread -> Ice Cream Sandwich. Will just show all other manufactures how poweful the Galaxy S line hardware is.
HTc Desire came out the same time as Galaxy S in 2010 and they really struggled to even get Gingerbread on it. Epic win Samsung please make this happen!
(my sister has a Galaxy S White, really want to see official ICS on it)
Except HTC Desire came out 2/3 months earlyer and came with android 2.1. Though I agree the hardware of the Galaxy S is much more future proof.
My Galaxy S Vibrant came with Eclair so that would be 4 full firmware updates and 2 tweaks. That would be cool. If they had to slim it down, I hope they would keep the camera features (nice when they’re embedded) and power control in the notification screen.
Feasibility?? Considering jt1134 already has it *running* on the Fascinate (regardless of space constraints), I’d hazard to guess it is pretty damned feasible.
They could just remove the bloatware on our phones, I have the Fascinate and there’s like 15-20 bloatware apps that I don’t use.
Whatcha waiting for man? Root that sumbitch, install Titanium Backup and get rid of the bloat.
Haven’t found a root guide for 2.3.5 that we just got around a month ago. I’m going to look again during my time off for holidays.
Even if they do get ICS on a Galaxy, if you live in the US, you won’t see the update until spring 2019.
I have a Galaxy Tab and I love it. I would appreciate a factory ICS image, and will happily wait for one if they decide to do it, but if not I’ll just root it and go with someone elses ICS ROM. It’s sad that I should have to do that though. the Galaxy Tab is more than capable of running Honeycomb or ICS and I can’t just get rid of mine seeing as how I got it subsidized from Verizon and it’s one of the few, if ONLY compact 3G-capable tablets on the market or Verizon.