Since the release of the Ice Cream Sandwich source code, developers have been working around the clock to bring some Android 4.0 goodness to our smartphones and tablets unofficially.
The popular Cyanogen team have stated that they intend to get ICS up and running on their 60 supported devices within the next 2 months, which is a tall order for anyone, but if anyone can do it, Cyanogen can.
Asides from the Cyanogen team, there are smaller teams of developers working on individual handsets in their own time. One such team is doing exactly that for the Samsung Galaxy S II, and they are making progress, albeit slow progress.
The team have managed to get Ice Cream Sandwich booting on Galaxy S II smartphones, but that is about all it is doing at the moment. This progress is a step up from the port that was tried with the SDK (Software Developer Kit), that wouldn’t even show the screen, so we’re definitely getting there.
This process will take time but the developers have a knack of beating the manufactures to the punch with the updates, which suits me fine.
The ports are coming along nicely for other handsets too – the Samsung Nexus S that had the most complete SDK port is just about to receive a major update – this update will bring an almost fully functional port of ICS from source. This will be big news in the Android world and will hopefully help the ports of other handsets in the near future.
The Samsung Galaxy S II port is the one I’m most interested in (unsurprisingly I have an S2!) and I can’t wait till I’ll be able to flash my handset and show a hands-on experience of ICS for you all.
You can keep an eye on the progress of the port here.
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