Samsung Confirms: No Value Pack, No Ice Cream Sandwich For Galaxy S And Tab

Galen

http://www.xda-developers.com/android/samsung-confirms-no-value-pack-no-ice-cream-sandwich-for-galaxy-s-and-tab/
Posted January 4, 2012 at 5:12 am

A Samsung spokesperson has told The Next Web that it will not bring any major updates to last year’s best-selling Galaxy S smartphone and the original Galaxy Tab, finally putting rumors of a ‘Value Pack’ update to an end.
After leaving out the Galaxy S and Tab when initially revealing its plans for ICS-updates three weeks ago, Samsung took to its Korean blog to explain that TouchWiz and other customizations would not run smoothly on the limited amount of memory available on the two older devices. Following a huge backlash, a report on a Korean website revealed that Samsung was reconsidering the move. Only a day later, another Korean website claimed that Samsung was preparing a Value Pack update, originally misunderstood to be adding ICS-specific features on top of Android 2.3 Gingerbread, but later corrected by one of our readers to be an actual Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich version with some TouchWiz-specific features removed. Well, no more.
What makes this especially disappointing is that both Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab are perfectly capable of running stock, AOSP Android 4.0, as evidenced by various ports in our forums and the similarly-specced Nexus S already getting its update, thus unnecessarily obsoleting a device that isn’t even two years old. At the very least, to preserve its software differentiations, Samsung could’ve opted to go ahead with the planned TouchWiz ‘Lite’ version, similar to what HTC has done with its Gingerbread update for the HTC Desire.
But then, for a handset maker that gains absolutely nothing by providing software updates, there’s arguably little economic incentive to do so.

Atomic Pineapple

Its hardly obsolete just because it isn't getting ICS!

Ste-

If ever there was doubt touchwizz is a bloated piece of crapware there's the proof as ICS runs fine on the Galaxy S without it.

Galen

ICS is working quite nicely on my Galaxy S I9000 without touchwiz and the rest of Samsung's crap.

bandit197

I've had ICS on my Galaxy S for about a month now. I wouldn't dream of installing Samsung's bloated versions anyway. If anyone really wants ICS on their Galaxy S they can read up a little and flash it themselves or get a techy friend to do it for them.

Its a pity Samsung wouldn't just release a vanilla ICS update. A properly optimised version runs beautifully on the Galaxy. I've had mine side by side with a new Galaxy nexus and it put the nexus to shame in terms of responsiveness and speed, go figure.

Galen

It's Samsung's way of reminding us of their existence by installing crap on our phones :-D

BaconZombie

From the Thread on Reddit:

http://www.reddit.com/r/Android/comments/o2h4k/samsung_confirms_no_ics_for_galaxy_s_and_galaxy/

It seem to be an issues with shared memory:

bd250110

I think customers have been used to updating software to the latest version for their PC/Mac for many years, there generally has not been a problem. There was one set of minimum spec - and that was it. What is difficult for the average consumer to understand is that
- The mobile world moves a lot faster, yes the SGS was the flagship 12 months ago, but SGS III will be here in a matter of weeks.
- Each manufacturer and each network modifies Android as it sees fit, for better or worse, each device will be different.

Whatever Apple have done wrong with iOS, they were quite clear that carriers should not be allowed to touch the OS, which is the right call, IMHO. Everyone has "vanilla iOS" and gets at least two major OS updates, as with the Nexus line. The 3Gs is of similar vintage to the SGS and it got the latest update - albeit missing some features. There is an advantage in that it keeps existing customers happy, but there is also a danger that existing customers won't update their phone, or go with a different device, if the latest model is not perceived as being "that different". Anecdotally, there are more Nexus One's still around than HTC Desire's....

Atomic Pineapple

The trouble with Google and Android is that they needed huge manufacturer pick up to grow Android at a rapid rate to allow it to become big enough quick enough to challenge a dominate iOS/Apple arena.

To do this they had to allow manufacturers put their own slant on Android so that they would choose it instead of their own proprietary OS's.

With Honeycomb being locked down I had hoped Google were going to now take a stand and keep Android vanilla on all devices from now on but I think they bottled out of it with ICS, possibly under manufactur pressure or fear that some manufacturers might give WP7 a go instead.

Either way Android will eventually have to be locked down to vanilla only, it will mean a better user experience for end users and easy development for developers leading to better apps.

manual_man

Balls. I was looking forward to this. I'm not techy at all

uck51js9zml2yt

manual_man wrote: »

Balls. I was looking forward to this. I'm not techy at all

Has anyone a link to installing ICS one the galaxy s?

cgordonfreeman

Hana Warm Tapeworm wrote: »

Has anyone a link to installing ICS one the galaxy s?

forum.xda-developers.com/showthread.php?t=1363593

uck51js9zml2yt

thanks...but...
is there an idiots guide to all the things you have to do to upgrade to ICS:D

cgordonfreeman

Hana Warm Tapeworm wrote: »

thanks...but...
is there an idiots guide to all the things you have to do to upgrade to ICS:D

It's actually not that hard. It's a bit daunting at first but do some reading on the galaxy s android development forum on xda first for about a week. Start off with how to root your phone, learn how to use Odin, enter download mode, install and use clockwork recovery and that's basically all you need to know. Those few steps repeated in various sequences and bingo, ICS.

I fecked up numerous times before I got the hang of it but the galaxy is hard to completely brick so mistakes are fixable. Just backup everything.

long_b

Looks like the value pack is coming after all !

http://androidcommunity.com/samsung-galaxy-tab-value-pack-update-now-available-in-south-korea-20120425/

Unless anyone can recommend an ICS ROM for the original Tab ?