Original Galaxy devices may get Ice Cream Sandwich after all
Remember when Samsung announced that the original Galaxy S line and Galaxy Tab would not be getting the update to Ice Cream Sandwich? Well, along with making us quite unhappy, it angered pretty much every Android devotee and certainly many Galaxy S owners too. In the face of this backlash, word has it that Samsung is now reconsidering their decision, and may still update their older Galaxy devices to Android 4.0.
The report, coming from ajnews in Korea, says that Samsung is planning to "review" the practicality of upgrading the Galaxy S. Of course, since the reason they first gave for not updating is that TouchWiz wouldn't work with Ice Cream Sandwich on the older devices, an easy fix would be simply to update the devices to the faster (and better) stock Android 4.0.
Unfortunately, that is incredibly unlikely to happen. Even though we may not like it, TouchWiz is a unique feature of Samsung's phones, and many users could be confused by an upgrade to stock Android. Anyways, if they were willing to stop an update for TouchWiz, I doubt the will give it up now. A more likely course of action now would be for Samsung to strip down TouchWiz so it will run better on the older hardware, something that fits their supposed promise to "make it work."
Whether it has TouchWiz or not, the rumored update would certainly be great for any Galaxy S owners. However, it will only serve to reinforce the idea that Samsung's explanation of why the devices couldn't be updated was mostly false. I appreciate Samsung trying to save face by doing what consumers want, but it shouldn't take an outcry to get an OS update on your smartphone.
[The Verge]
