Ice Cream Sandwich was one of the most anticipated software updates in living memory, but five months since launching, is the latest, greatest version of Android a flop?
Android 4.0 is languishing on a mere 2.9 per cent of 'droid devices, with manufacturers doing a rubbish job of updating their existing phones. It's time we asked the question -- has Ice Cream Sandwich failed? Or is it just biding its time?
That's the topic of our feature this week -- hit play on the little box to the right to hear CNET UK techsperts Luke Westaway, Andrew Hoyle and Jason Jenkins thrash it out.
We'll also be chatting about new laws that would let the government snoop on your communication, Android getting a good deal trendier thanks to Instamatic, and a run-down of the best April Fool's gags from around the Interwebs.
Moving on to Crave, we'll be arguing over who's found the coolest tech this week -- Luke has good things to say about Super Meat Boy on the iPhone, and Andy has gone all gooey over the Alienware X51 gaming PC. Jason, meanwhile, is craving the slender, powerful HTC One S.
As per usual, we'll also be rattling through your excellent feedback and awarding a badge for the best comment. We love hearing your feedback, so keep it coming on our Facebook wall, via Twitter or by sticking some words in the comments below.
And of course we'll be rounding off with another exciting instalment of Otamatone review, where our favourite bleeping friend offers his view on the latest gadgetry.
Enjoy, folks!
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Comments 10
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zephyrx 6 April, 2012 17:26
Yawn. Can't say most people outside of the tech community even care. They buy their phones on the basis of whether they like what they see in the shop on the day, and in most cases I'd say they look at updates as a nuisance more than anything. Speaking of ICS though, I just got the update through from o2 for my HTC Sensation.
anonymous 6 April, 2012 19:07
@zephyrx very very ture. i've read some of the post on here and you would think the world was about to end. And they all said that there sgs2 is going in the bin and the iphone is coming back out the draw, it's funny when it first came out the s2 the best phone ever? what has changed, im more than happy with my phone and if ICS comes my way ill see if it' makes the phone even better, but i will be geting they s3 thank you very much
Choccie Milk 6 April, 2012 22:05
You said that the HTC Ones will get Android updates slowly since they have sense 4 but the sensation got ICS first and it had sense 3 which was much heavier.
anonymous 7 April, 2012 08:42
I don't think the 2.9% figure shows that ICS has failed, I think it shows that mobile carriers are failing their customers by not releasing updates in a timely manor, but I don't think Google want to be like Apple in forcing carriers and handset makers to do as they are told, that would only serve to damage the partnerships...
Then we would all lose out...
pablouk1 7 April, 2012 14:01
I would like to find out if its any good but I have a Samsung GX2 on T-mobile and they can not be bothered to release it. (or so it seems).
But my phone works great without ICS so until its finally released (2013 maybe) i'm happy.
anonymous 8 April, 2012 16:31
ICS hasn't failed. The heavy players in Android have either just started releasing their new hardware, or will in the next few months. HTC just started with their "One" series, and Samsung will potentially be shipping their "Galaxy SIII" in the next couple of months. With HTC One's for sale, we'll see the ICS marketshare start to rise quite rapidly, and once the SIII hits, I don't think it will take very long for ICS to get 50% marketshare.
anonymous 10 April, 2012 11:30
I don't know why one would bother.
ICS is just facing it's first major round of releases (Q2), since the Nexus Prime was released relatively late into Q4. Come back with the same question at the end of Q3 and you still may only have statistics on the success of the HTC One series, the S3 or other counter-parts. The single thing that could be called a failure is the poor uptake by manufacturers who are clearly cutting costs.
Besides, the purpose of ICS, and what justified a new version number, was the unification of tablet and smartphone and not uptake. It's done this and laid a basis for future releases in doing so. Nobody's rejecting the OS and it's market share is purely dependant on the actions of slacking manufacturers.
Once again, it seems this is just part of the ceaseless, senseless bashing of Android that I have come to expect from CNET UK "writers".
anonymous 10 April, 2012 17:10
I think it has, which is a massive shame as having played with it on a Nexus, it is utterly brilliant. It is the OS that Android should be, everything you feel should just be there in Gingerbread or earlier is there in ICS. A better way to say that perhaps is that when using a smart phone there are intuitive features that you feel your phone should just have, I don't think ICS lacks anything in that way really, unlike Gingerbread.
I think it is a failure simply because of the trouble surrounding updates. Now, this is not the fault of the OS or Android, rather the networks and handset manufacturers. I feel they have let Google down. The whole thing has made me think I will only buy Google handsets in the future, and hopefully Google will put more into the manufacturing and advertisement of these handsets.
Perhaps it is time for Google to produce a small line up of 'Google' phones (maybe a low end, mid range, and top end phone per year) running a Chrome OS? I say Chrome because of the possible benefits of differentiating the 'Google' phone from third part manufacturers running Android.
I think Android is brilliant, more fun to use than iOS, and, though I think WP7 looks great and WP8 will be great when used with Windows 8 on tablet or PC, I will continue to use Google OSs. To me ICS is everything a mobile OS should be, but, again, the manufacturers have made a mess of things and let Google down.
olivierm 10 April, 2012 23:16
The launch is an utter waste of money. All that communication and then, nothing for 6 months for most users. Would have been much better spent money if it had just preceded the launch of most high end ICS sporting phones rather than the launch of just one model
anonymous 11 April, 2012 12:37
I just git ics on m HTC afte thinking about moving to iOS, glad I did not as it has transformed the phone with a more advanced feel than iOS .