Tuesday, November 15, 2011

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich source code has been released. Brace for impact!


Google software engineer Jean-Baptiste Queru announced that the Android 4.0 source code is being rolled out to the Android Open Source Project (AOSP) where it will be available for the public to download.

Android 4.0, also known as Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), is the latest version of Google's mobile operating system. The first device to officially feature Android 4.0 will be the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, announced last month in Hong Kong.

Ice Cream Sandwich is a significant update because it brings all earlier versions of Android together -- that includes Honeycomb, whose code wasn't released to the public specifically to prevent developers from porting it to unsupported devices and cause mayhem. But Honeycomb's source code is included in Ice Cream Sandwich's code, because ICS was built on top of it.


“This release includes the full history of the Android source code tree, which naturally includes all the source code for the Honeycomb releases. However, since Honeycomb was a little incomplete, we want everyone to focus on Ice Cream Sandwich.

So, we haven’t created any tags that correspond to the Honeycomb releases (even though the changes are present in the history.)” said Queru.

Now, with the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich officially released, ROM developers can start coding and bring this tasty ice cream flavor to our previous-gen phones to sample :D. Let's see who builds a complete ICS ROM first... my bet would be Cyanogen.
Since my device can't officially get Ice Cream Sandwich - due to its hardware specs being too low, obviously - you can imagine I can't wait to taste Ice Cream Sandwich :D.

Ice Cream Sandwich is said to be the first Android OS to pose some threat to Apple's iOS - serious competition, that is. At least that's what I've read over the Internet in the past few weeks. And I disagree with that statement, to be honest. Android is competing with iOS ever since it appeared! And, if you ask me, Android is better than iOS. Putting them side-to-side would be... actually doable. I think I'll make a comparision once I get ICS on my HTC. I doubt I'll be able to do a full analysis of both operating systems, though, but it should be enough...

10 comments:

  1. Sounds neat but won't really be significant to me until I get an Android.

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  2. Contemplating wether I should get an iPhone or try for an android. Thanks for the post.

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  3. that sandwich look tasty!

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  4. I'll use iOS for ever, but this one could be an option for tablets or something. thanks

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  5. Can't wait for this!

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  6. Man thats an aweosme picture for them to promote with. Droid always does it big. I personally can not wait for this one to come thru

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  7. I really want an Adroid phone, and its good to know this info, thank god for open sources!

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  8. ICS ROMs should be out by Christmas, indeed. At least for Nexus :D

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  9. mmmmmmm looks tasty :) I do not care for the phone I want that Ice cream sandwich :P

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