Samsung has just announced that the international version of the Galaxy S II will get Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich starting on March 10th, which is tomorrow. Now before you jump and down, you really should make sure that you have the right device. If you purchased your Galaxy S II from your operator, chances are you’re screwed and that you’ll have to wait a while. If you have the Galaxy S II with LTE, the S II with an HD screen, or the S II with both of those technologies, then again, you’re out of luck. But if you’re the kind of person who buys phones without a subsidy, then here’s what you need to know: 1) If you’re going to perform the update using KIES, make sure you have KIES version 2.0 installed 2) If you’re going to update your firmware over the air, make sure you have roughly 350 MB of free space on your device.
The bigger question here is just how badly will Samsung corrupt Google’s beautiful new user interface? Will they replace it with a version of TouchWIZ that looks and feels like the exact same version of TouchWIZ that we saw back in 2011 or will they let Ice Cream Sandwich shine and just throw some visual accents, à la HTC Sense 4.0? It’s not going to take too long for us to find out the answer.
Update: Samsung’s Twitter account now says this story is incorrect. Sigh, looks like we’re right at the beginning again, wondering just when exactly we’ll see a smartphone other than the Galaxy Nexus out on the market running the latest version of Android. This is incredibly frustrating if you’re heavily involved in the Android ecosystem, but then again if you take seriously then what are you doing buying a handset other than the Nexus in the first place?