Android (rooted): Our favourite custom Android ROM, CyanogenMod, has come out with a release candidate of its next version, complete with some Ice Cream Sandwiche visual effects, a predictive phone dialler and more.
Android: A lot of phones are getting Ice Cream Sandwich eventually, but we all know that could take a while. If you can’t wait, Phoenix Launcher reproduces Ice Cream Sandwich’s smooth, good-looking launcher and app drawer on any device running Gingerbread.
If you’re lucky enough to have an Android device running Ice Cream Sandwich, like the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the folks at ExtremeTech have a great walkthrough on how to turn your handset into a fairly powerful workstation. You’ll need a couple of items to get started, but the end result is that your phone can turn into a desktop almost anywhere you go.
If you have an Android device running Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0), you can now download the beta version of Google’s Chrome browser from the Android Market. The mobile version brings many of the things we love about Chrome, like bookmark syncing and Incognito mode, direct to your phone or tablet.
One of the best things about the Samsung Galaxy Nexus is that it comes with a vanilla OS: no crapware and no bloated UI skin. But that doesn’t mean that you also get updates directly from Google. If you bought your Galaxy Nexus from Telstra, Optus or Vodafone, you’re not running the latest version of Ice Cream Sandwich, and you probably never will.
We’re big fans of Ice Cream Sandwich (Android 4.0 to the rest of you), but right now it’s only available locally in the form of the Galaxy Nexus (and apparently random updates on the Nexus S). Vodafone is offering an email update service that will let customers know when ICS is made available on the phones it sells.
If you want a brand-new phone running Ice Cream Sandwich, then you can choose from a stack of carrier deals for the Galaxy Nexus. But if you picked up its predecessor, the Nexus S, during its brief period of availability from Vodafone earlier this year, you might also be in luck.
Android: Ice Cream Sandwich is bringing a lot of awesome new features to Android, one of which is a new and improved keyboard. If you can’t wait to get your hands on it, you can download the Ice Cream Sandwich keyboard in the Android Market right now, no root required.
Android’s upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich update looks amazing, but as with all Android updates, you never really know whether your phone’s going to get updated (and when). Tech blog Engadget has a list of which phones are headed for the update.
