Sorry Galaxy S owners — even though your device has a near-identical spec sheet to the ICS-friendly Nexus S, Samsung has announced on their corporate blog that the company’s first Galaxy device won’t be getting the offical bump to Android 4.0.
The original Galaxy S isn’t the only one to get the snub, as the 7-inch Galaxy Tab won’t be able to join in the fun either.
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. Considering that the myriad U.S. variants of the Galaxy S run with similar hardware, it’s doubtful that all you hold-outs with your Captivates and Epic 4Gs will get a taste of Ice Cream Sandwich either, lest you shell out for some new devices.
So what’s a Galaxy S loyalist to do? Well, if you’re dead set against swapping handsets and you dislike TouchWiz anyway (like me), there’s always the custom ROM route. Once TouchWiz is removed from the picture, the Galaxy S seems totally capable of running a vanilla version of Ice Cream Sandwich without too many headaches. As GSMArena points out, the experience isn’t completely without hiccups, but the end result doesn’t look too shabby at all.