On Wednesday (10-19-2011) Google’s Gabe Cohen said that the Nexus S would definitely get Android 4.0 and that he thinks most devices currently on Android 2.3 Gingerbread or higher could eventually see an update. Gabe went on to say that Google is “currently in the process of releasing Ice Cream Sandwich for Nexus S. Theoretically [it] should work for any 2.3 device.”
When asked the same question Google's Andy Ruben said most of the current generation of Android devices would be able to support Ice Cream Sandwich, but it’s always up to the carriers on which devices actually get updated.
So it appears it's up to AT&T whether or not I will get this awesome update. What are the thoughts on this around here? I was honestly surprised when I was allowed to update to Gingerbread. It made my phone 100 times better. I did not expect AT&T to make that update available. And I personally have these aching doubts in the back of my mind that AT&T will force me to buy a new phone if I want ICS.
But while there are things the Atrix won't support in Ice Cream Sandwich such as the Near Field Communication aka "Android Beam," there are still a lot of cool things I would love to have like the improved data manager, improved camera app, and the people app. Not to mention the new task manager and facial recognition features (which should work considering it has a front facing camera) and the voice to text improvements. In fact other than the "Android Beam" function and the missing barometer features, I can't think of anything else in ICS that wouldn't work on the Atrix. I suppose the instantaneous shutter might not work as well, depending on how much of that feature is optimized software and how much of it is hardware based.
So what is the general consensus around here regarding our chances at getting an ICS upgrade, and how many of you are looking forward to it?
