communication technology: Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100) to get ICS on March 10th (update: recalled)

Saturday, March 10, 2012

Samsung Galaxy S II (GT-I9100) to get ICS on March 10th (update: recalled)

Two days. That's the amount of time remaining for you, dear Samsung Galaxy S II owner, before the long-awaited upgrade to Android 4.0 -- the dessert known as Ice Cream Sandwich -- becomes readily available for your device through Kies. Naturally, this is going to be adorned with Sammy's TouchWiz UI, and it's only going to be ready on the GT-I9100 (global version) for now. According to the notes, we can expect to see Face Unlock, Android Beam and data usage included, and multitasking and some apps will be improved. We're sure this is just the tip of the feature iceberg, however. Curiously, the site specifies that because of "ICS OS feature," Flash and Bluetooth 3.0 HS won't be supported.

The update will come to individual carriers and their own GSII variants eventually, after a hefty amount of testing on their end, but at least this -- combined with HTC's rollout of Sense 3.6 to the Nordic countries today -- means the ICS ball is officially rolling for custom skins. Let's just hope it's going down a steep hill. If you happen to be packing a GT-I9100, be sure to check the links below for the full set of instructions, and let us know what you find.

[Thanks, Argel and Roger]

Update: Samsung's just tweeted that March 10th date is (sadly) wrong. It added that once the upgrade schedule is concrete, it'll confirm through its dedicated Twitter account.