Samsung Galaxy S2 to get Ice Cream Sandwich on 15 March

By Rich Trenholm on 5 March 2012, 5:27pm

Ice Cream Sandwich is coming to the Samsung Galaxy S2 this month. It may be later than hoped, but it seems the S2 will update to the latest version of Android on 15 March.

That's according to a post on Samsung's official Facebook page in Israel -- which has since been deleted. Fingers crossed, folks...

Ice Cream Sandwich coming to the S2 is kind of a big deal. It's the most popular Android phone, selling over 20 million phones -- second only to the iPhone.

For all those Android fans desperately hoping for a lick of Ice Cream Sandwich, the new update is proving unbearably slow to arrive. Delays to the update for the Asus Transformer have given fans an Ice Cream headache. The HTC Sensation and XE are about to get an update.

Android updates are typically delayed by the prevalence of front-end interfaces added to Android phones by the manufacturer. Google provides the code for Android as a foundation, but manufacturers and phone networks add their own skin on the front -- such as Samsung's TouchWiz, or HTC Sense -- as well as their own apps.

So when an update appears, it's not just a question of updating the phone. The skin and the apps have to be tested and adjusted too -- spare a thought for owners of an LG Optimus phone, which only just updated to Gingerbread, the last version of Android, at the end of last year. The process is delayed further if you've bought your phone through a network, because they add their own gubbins too, taking weeks longer.

It sounds like the S2 will get ICS just before its hotly anticpated sequel, the Samsung Galaxy S3, is announced. Although we don't have concrete dates yet, signs point to an announcement in April -- to be confirmed on Twitter.

If you're wondering what all the fuss is about, here's ten reasons why Ice Cream Sandwich beats Gingerbread. And if you really can't wait, here's how to get Ice Cream Sandwich on your S2 now.

Is it about time you got Ice Cream Sandwich, or is your phone managing just fine without it? Scoop out your thoughts in the comments or on our Facebook page.

Comments 12

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Andy Kirkman 5 March, 2012 18:18

Any news on the Galaxy Note?

anonymous 5 March, 2012 18:52

You wait ages for the Skygo app then when it finally arrives you won't be able to use ot on ICS!! What's that all about or am i completely mistaken?????

Howard10000 5 March, 2012 22:04

Does ICS support Flash yet? <br />
<br />
If it doesn't, they can shove this 'improvement' up their *****

anonymous 6 March, 2012 06:36

Flash has been updated to support ics although flash is a sinking ship anyway.

Mropinionated 6 March, 2012 07:06

You had to do it didn't you, you had to put your little "unbiased" dig in with the Apple iPhone, one question though Rich, how many iPhone 4S's have been sold to date? The only figures that seem to be quoted out there are for the iPhone as a whole. So that being the case lets lump all the Galaxy Phones under the same banner and see what the figures look like.
I really wish the reviewers at cnet would take their fruit flavoured spectacles off once in a while and produce a wholly unbiased opinion about technology, other than drooling over everything that comes out of Cupertino, and slating everything else because it doesn't carry the haloed fruit based logo.
Come on chaps show the world you have a real opinion and are not just subservient to all that is Malus Domestica.

Rich Trenholm 6 March, 2012 12:26

Sheesh.

It's not me that's biased, it's the facts. Count the Galaxy S and Galaxy S2 together, and Samsung has sold 40 million Galaxy S phones. Which is a fantastic number for a fantastic phone - well done Samsung.

But if you're talking about sales figures, you have to put them in context. And the plain fact is that Apple sold 37 million iPhones in the last three months of 2011 alone. It's estimated that 90 per cent of those were the 4S. That doesn't take away from how good the S2 is - and has nothing to do with my opinion - it's just numbers.

Hope that answers your question, Mropinionated

anonymous 6 March, 2012 18:09

now this are as like kind of digital note book

Stuart Miller 7 March, 2012 14:01

@mropinionated. I tend to notice that many Apple fanboys seem to equate sales figures to superiority of product (a bit like saying "if its more expensive its better") as if it is somehow implicit. Any product from McDonalds should serve as a good example of the folly of that assumption.

If you like your Apple products then that's cool but why the need to be ridiculously overprotective of them just because there are other equally worthy products out there?

It's about consumer choice really. Both Apple and Android have their plus points and minus points but I don't really think there's a need for any user of a phone to defend it as if it defines their status as a human being. However, that's the nature of the fanboy to some degree I guess.

Your false accusation that the reviewer was being biased gives the impression that you are in that category. I hope (for your sakes) that that is not the case. :-)

Apple make excellent products including their phone. Relatively, they are ridiculously expensive, iconic and user simplistic but friendly because that's their target market - to a degree like it is for their computers.

It certainly seems like sour grapes to me that now Android have caught Apple up there seems to be this "spiltting into camps" and people moaning all the time.

When I bought my phone i watched comparison videos on the net and the overwhelming bias was towards the iPhone. Mostly, the reviewer (not cnet) was expecting me to be fooled by his biased stats but more notably they felt i should fork out 40-50% more over a 2 year contract for an iPhone simply because it was an iPhone and the scroll on the smaller screen was ever so slightly "cooler" than the Galaxy S2. Never mind comparing the important stuff like "cost/Mb of storage space" or "comparative limitations of software/hardware".

To be honest this "marginal snobbishness" alone put me off the iPhone but this - linked with its highly restrictive and oversimplified approach to what I was allowed/not allowed to do on it made me choose Android.

Oh yeah, and i don't have to pay through the nose to insure it either - simply because its an iphone.

People who don't want an iphone purely because its an iphone can stand back and chose a phone based on what they want and need. Banging on about marginal elements like the gimmicky SIRI and tiny differences in screen resolution when the elephant in the room is COST and MEMORY is summat people who get free phones sent to them to test and compare on a weekly basis just don't see for some reason.

Those of us in the real world who want to use them for longer than a week and have to pay for them tend to have more relevant criteria.

As regards ICS and the article, i'm more worried about what limitations it will bring over Gingerbread because most of the differences between them are easily covered by Apps. What i want to know is what CAN'T ICS do that GB can?

Then I might consider upgrading:-)