With the announcement that a few European countries would have Ice Cream Sandwich rolling out to their Samsung Galaxy SIIs, Samsung also gave us a friendly reminder about a few of their other devices. Android 4.0 for the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 8.9 will “follow soon” to the update that is rolling out now.

Samsung also confirmed the dreaded “value pack” firmware upgrade for phones like the Galaxy S. After saying the Galaxy S wasn’t getting ICS, then backtracking and then said the phone might not get a value pack either; users were frustrated. But Samsung explains a few details of what they have up their sleeve:

The firmware upgrades for GALAXY S, for example, include Face Unlock, Snapshot, Photo Editor, and others.

So it is a little something isn’t it? But is it enough to appease Galaxy S users? Let’s just hope for Samsung’s sake that the ICS rollout across the world doesn’t take too long.

Via: Facebook

Verizon has been silent for the most part when it comes to Ice Cream Sandwich updates for their lineup of Android devices. Many of the OEMs that they deal with have informed us in one way or another, but we were waiting for Big Red to make some things official since they sign off on final software. Their list is now public and is as follows.

For HTC devices, we will see Android 4.0 on the Thunderbolt, Incredible 2, Rhyme and Rezound. Sorry original Incredible owners. For Motorola devices we will see it on the XOOM, Bionic, RAZR, RAZR MAXX, DROID 4 and XYBOARD tablets. Sorry DROID X, DROID X2, and DROID 3 owners. For Samsung devices it looks like only the Galaxy Tab 10.1 and 7.7 will see it. No DROID Charge. From LG, only the Spectrum will receive ICS.

Sooo, quite a few devices missing including a couple that should have more than enough power under the hood to run Android 4.0.

Update:  Yes, I see that it says “4G LTE devices currently scheduled” in the press release which has led many to believe that this is simply a 4G LTE only list and that some 3G devices were specifically left out. I’m having a hard time following that logic since the Incredible 2 and Rhyme were also listed and are 3G-only phones. Also, the DROID Charge which is 4G LTE, is left off. This is an assumption of course, but I would tend to lean towards this list being pretty complete.

No dates were given.

Steve Kondik took to G+ this weekend to announce that a CM9 pre-alpha is available for the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 WiFi. To load it and see what CM9 has to offer, all you have to do is flash a recovery.img in fastboot and then the CM9.zip through there. Again, this is “pre-alpha” and not the final product.

It will still be a bit before we see full CM9 on many devices as the team is working to make the overall experience highly tweakable but with a more polished out-of-the-box experience. Cannot wait to see what they have in store when this is all finished.

Via:  Google+ (Files)

For the past week I’ve been spending some quality time with the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1. While I like the hardware for the most part and I don’t mind TouchWiz, I’ve been struggling to find a place for the device in my life. While a large part of it is simply that I’m not entirely convinced that a tablet is the best form factor, I keep finding myself disappointed with the app selection and quality. There are some great apps available for Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich, but overall I’ve been disappointed time and time again. 

The news application that has been quite the hit on the iPad has now been announced as coming to the Android world thanks to Verizon today. The two companies have signed up to bring the subscription based application to the Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 first. The Verizon version of the tablet will have it pre-loaded and the Galaxy Tab 7.7 that was announced yesterday will get the application at a later date, no word on any other devices.

You get a week of the Daily free on Verizon and after that you can sign up for a monthly or yearly subscription, which will cost you $3.99 and $39.99 respectively. This is a great option for any newshead out there, the Daily is a great outlet. Will anyone take advantage of this if it comes to other devices like the XOOM or WiFi Galaxy Tab 10.1?

Good news for Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 LTE owners! If you accept the latest 351MB update that includes TouchWiz, you can root it with the exact same root patch that you applied after initially purchasing the tablet and also after receiving the last update. It’s as simple as downloading a .zip file, dropping it onto your device’s storage, booting into recovery and then applying it. Thanks for keeping that wide open, Samsung.

Cheers Ben!

If you own a Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1 with 4G LTE on Verizon, you should have a pretty major update available to you any day now. The update is version EL01 and includes TouchWiz for tablets along with a ton of other fixes and improvements. The document above (click to enlarge) will walk you through all of the major changes such as the mini apps tray, quick panel, and social hub widget. If stock Honeycomb was becoming a bore, this should give you some much needed spice.

The update itself is 351MB in size, so be sure you are in a strong LTE area or on WiFi before attempting to download.

More details after the break.