

No Ice Cream Sandwich For Galaxy S And Galaxy Tab, Says Samsung - playhard
http://techcrunch.com/2011/12/23/no-ice-cream-sandwich-for-galaxy-s-and-galaxy-tab-says-samsung/

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parfe
I run ICS on my Galaxy S. Right now the only feature not functioning is video
recording. Definitely worth the side-grade from my Droid X (which locked the
boot-loader). $100 for the S, sold the Droid X for $90.

 _It looks like TouchWiz deserves most of the blame here — according to
Samsung Tomorrow, neither device has enough RAM or ROM to accomodate TouchWiz
and all of its Samsung-designed accoutrements without affecting the quality of
use._

Ah, the vendor screws up vanilla ICS and blames the device for not having the
memory to run these "improvements".

~~~
kablamo
I'm very annoyed there is no ICS. Maybe I have to try this out cyanogen stuff.

I was at a tech meeting in Singapore where a Samsung rep introduced their
android tablet last year. Someone asked him when Samsung would stop putting
touch wiz on the phone just give us the vanilla os. He said that would never
happen because phone companies want to 'differentiate' themselves.

Its plain weird to me that these companies can't accept that these horrible
customizations are not giving them an advantage. Their differentiation is
going to be on price and hardware. I guess they can't let go of the old
business model?

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a_a_r_o_n
My Epic upgrade path has hit the wall, and I've had it less than a year? It's
hard to see why I'd ever buy another smartphone.

~~~
potatolicious
You can always root it and install something else. Not an option for many
users, but since you're on HN likely an option for you.

There is also a certain other vendor that has, so far, had a good track record
of issuing updates for at least 2 years from release... and sometimes longer.

But of course, according to some parts of the internet, if you buy anything
from this vendor you're shallow, materialistic, vain, attention-seeking, and
just plain dumb.

But what do I know, I just use this phone.

~~~
a_a_r_o_n
"There is also a certain other vendor ..."

Ironic that I went Android out of fear and irritation toward that other
vendor, and in fact I've been having other vendor envy.

~~~
kls
I have an iPhone but I went with the Galaxy Tab 7 inch tablet because my kids
play a good deal of Flash games and I figured that would be a big part of the
usage in my house. It was and for that it was a good purchase, but I must say,
I don't think I would switch phones, I say that even though a feature I use on
my phone a good deal (navigation), is far superior on the Android phones. It's
one of the primary features I use but after dealing with dead end upgrade
cycles I just can not bring myself to switch. My wife has the Atrix, which has
been a good phone for her, and we use it as our navigation device so I don't
really feel the pain of needing that feature.

Google really needs to try to align the market and figure out a path to make
it profitable for vendors to upgrade these devices, even if it requires
purchasing the upgrade. I would pay a fee or purchase a service agreement, if
they offered a path to update these systems. In fact I think their may be a
business model there, for a pure software company to build out a common
version of Android for these devices, provide support, and a time period of
upgrade coverage no matter who's device you buy, obviously the hardware would
have to support the updates, but I believe that there would be value in it.
Hell I would buy it, just to get newer video codecs. I am noticing more and
more videos are not working as my Tab is starting to age.

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cek
Gruber gets it right:

<http://daringfireball.net/linked/2011/12/23/samsung-ics>

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drcube
Maybe they're just waiting for the CyanogenMod port of ICS? :)

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yalogin
This is a real problem. My Nexus One did not even get 3.0. Its really
disappointing. Why spend on the phone when its not even supported for a year.

~~~
nsheridan
3.0 was for tablets, not for phones.

~~~
yalogin
Yes. I completely forgot about that. And that is a problem too. If its part of
a train you expect it to be applicable to all hardware. Apple would never do
that.

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funkah
Must be disappointing for people who bought them. Especially since this one is
supposed to finally be The Good Version of Android, apparently.

~~~
moe
We're getting used to it.

Samsung is well-known for not supporting their devices. It will be interesting
to see if google forces a change with the Nexus.

It will be especially interesting to watch and compare the upgrade-schedule
for the near-identical Nexus and Galaxy S2.

Oh, and we're also getting used to the next android finally being The Good
Version of Android. I played around with a Nexus and it was still quite laggy.
But I'm sure the next android version will finally fix that...

~~~
potatolicious
Well known for not supporting their devices but yet got on stage with Google
at Google I/O and pledged a turnaround, and has completely failed to do as
promised.

At this point I wouldn't trust Google, Samsung, HTC, Moto, or anyone else when
it comes to "Android will be better tomorrow" promises. Un til it's running
hardware _in my hands_ I will not give one iota of trust to any of these
companies to deliver what they promise.

