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Poll: Do you have Ice Cream Sandwich yet?

Summary: The latest version of Android is easily the best version to date, but not everyone has received an update yet. Respond to this poll so we can see how many readers are running Ice Cream Sandwich.

James Kendrick

By for Mobile News |

Having used Android 4.x, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, aka ICS, on both phones and tablets, I find it to be far better than earlier versions of Android. ICS on phones is particularly nice, with an attractive interface that seems to flow better than either Gingerbread or Froyo.

Tablets are better with ICS too, although I find it an incremental improvement over Honeycomb on the bigger screen. Honeycomb was also designed for the tablet, and ICS builds on that to be a solid upgrade.

I believe I am in an unusual position that my phone and tablet both have ICS. I hear regularly from folks who don't have the upgrade yet, and who desperately want it. It is obvious from comments on this blog that many of you are running Android so it makes sense to conduct a poll to see how widespread ICS is.

This isn't a scientific poll by any means, it's just a gauge for the readership to see how many are using ICS versus how many are still stuck on older versions of Android.

[poll id="14"]

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31 comments
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  • I had ICS, then Downgraded

    ICS would randomly reboot my phone, even when I tried different kernels, radios, ICS based ROMs, bootloaders, and recovery environments.

    Then again, I have an HTC HD2 whose ability to boot into Android is inherently reverse engineered, since it shipped with Windows Mobile 6.5, so even 2.3.5 is a pretty good version of Android to be running =).

    Joey
    voyager529
    Reply Vote

    • waiting on ICS for the Dinc2 but the flyer has been EOL's

      August 2012 is the tentative month that my Dinc2 will get it. My HTC Flyer will not see an official ICS, though. HTC has stated they will remain on HC. I can only assume because they have decided to exit the tablet market, as they give no reason for why. Current developer builds are still far from usable....
      dracodos
      Reply Vote

  • On two devices

    On.newly purchased Galaxy Nexus Phone and older Acer
    Iconia A500 tablet. Very happy with it !
    jkohut
    Reply Vote

  • Supposedly

    VZW will be allowing ICS on the HTC Thunderbolt sometime this month... I'm not holding my breath. If I recall correctly the custom ICS ROMS for the Thunderbolt are buggy and data does not work - which would not be good to install on a device I use for work. I'll keep on with Gingerbread.
    NonFanboy
    Reply Vote

  • Got it on my tablet, but not my phone

    And I have no idea whether LG will push it to my phone in the forseeable future.
    John L. Ries
    Reply Vote

  • Have it on my Tablets

    Both the ASUS TF300 and the Sony Tablet S have ICS.

    My phone should have it within a few weeks.
    slickjim
    Reply Vote

  • Got away from bugdroid!!!!

    I and my son and my friend got sick of the android phone freezing and locking up and we are all happy with our Nokia Lumina 900! The windows phones have not locked or froze up yet. Even if there are not as many fart apps in the windows market the apps are way better looking and work better. The best phone I have had. You can keep the android phone and all of it's problems and I will keep a solid and smooth phone!
    imsimsj
    Reply Vote

    • Mine were due to hw issues

      I experienced similar things with the Galaxy Nexus. VZW swapped my phone for another Galaxy Nexus and my issues are gone.

      I would like to try WinPhone but VZW only offers one outdated model.
      otaddy
      Reply Vote

  • Incomplete survey...

    1. Were you promised an upgrade when you bought your phone?
    2. What benefits did/do you expect from an upgrade?
    3. Did you buy your phone because it met your needs, or because you expected a future upgrade to make it meet your needs?

    Seems a lot of people went out and bought crappy phones, then blamed android or lack of android upgrades instead of doing due diligence when shopping ( see "bugdroid" comment above).
    I'd like to know how this unrealistic free-upgrades-forever expectation came about in the first place. Sure, it's a great selling point for Apple, with only a single model in each product line, but I don't remember (after a long career working with all kinds of large and small systems) any other category of computer where unlimited free upgrades to the OS were made available, unless explicitly stated in the contract.
    Maybe this particular blogger could answer this for me, since his voice was one of the loudest complaining about not getting his free upgrade in a timely enough manner. Or maybe he's just trying to make a few more clicks out of the same old, tired, debunked "android fragmentation" non-issue.
    radleym
    Reply Vote

    • Reading entirely too much into the article

      From the article: [b]This isn???t a scientific poll by any means, it???s just a gauge for the readership to see how many are using ICS versus how many are still stuck on older versions of Android.[/b]

      You say: [b]I'd like to know how this unrealistic free-upgrades-forever expectation came about in the first place. Sure, it's a great selling point for Apple...[/b]

      You answered your own question - Apple was the one who got everyone to expect free upgrades or upgrades at all. I do not recall any sort of free upgrade on my WM device - I had to bake custom ROMS if I wanted to run something other than WM5. Blackberry was the same. And it's not entirely unrealistic as Apple has proven... My iPhone 4 for example has been able to run every single upgrade from iOS 4.0 to iOS 5.1.1 (the current OS). My previous Android phone is capable of running ICS and yet it was "stuck" on Froyo... the carrier did not allow it to have Honeycomb much less Gingerbread... so once again a custom ROM to the rescue.

      I will agree that a lot of people went out and bought crappy phones - I did when I got my Samsung Galaxy S... my HTC Thunderbolt is a much better device.
      NonFanboy
      Reply Vote

      • It is nothing of the sort

        He is trying to show that Android is fragmented and will use this for a future argument. The 2.3.3 and above apps are compatible with ICS but that will not matter for his future articles.

        I suspect he was hit the hardest in the recent ZDNet survey and this is how he will cover himself.
        slickjim
        Reply Vote

      • @Peter Perry

        Paranoid much?

        I'm not sure if I really want ICS on my device or not - it does everything I need it to do now on Gingerbread.

        I was responding to radleym's question over the "unrealistic free updates" question... I'm glad to see that [i]finally[/i] some Android users are getting their devices upgraded without having to root or buy a new device.
        NonFanboy
        Reply Vote

    • To answer your survey...

      1. No, I was not promised an upgrade when I bought the phone. It wasn't until six months to a year later that the manufactured decided to not offer an upgrade.
      2. Since my phone was left by the wayside, applications that once worked on it no longer function properly or at all. This includes some applications that were pre-installed on the phone itself!
      3. I purchased a phone that met my needs. Because of fragmentation, however, the entire phone and the Android experience became worse over time. Now, countless Android Apps crash regularly. There are only a select few that still function properly.
      MongooseProXC
      Reply Vote

    • "Forever"?

      Who keeps a phone forever? Most people keep them two years, the life of most contracts, if that long. And most phones work quite well out of the box; what most people want from an upgrade, I suspect, is the feeling of a new phone halfway through their contracts.

      And what's wrong with that? If the phone can run the upgrade, the only reason for withholding it is to spur sales of latest and greatest. Nothing wrong with more sales, either, but capitalism is billed as being good for the customer, not necessarily for the business. Somehow, in the last few years, it's been turned around. Plus, the focus seems to be on acquiring new customers instead of keeping existing ones happy.

      I wasn't promised an upgrade when I bought my phone, but one of its selling points was the ability to run ICS. That upgrade hasn't materialized yet, so I put a custom ROM on my phone.

      And I'll keep all this in mind when it's time to renew my contract. I've used pay-ahead plans before with no problems. I don't NEED a cell phone, after all, and I have more computers than I need already.
      clfitz
      Reply Vote

    • Great selling point for Apple?

      [i]I'd like to know how this unrealistic free-upgrades-forever expectation came about in the first place. Sure, it's a great selling point for Apple...[/i]

      Free upgrades forever and Apple in the same paragraph? Who would have thought?
      ye
      Reply Vote

  • Be patient.

    ICS is rolling out faster now that the migration mechanisms are being perfected by the handset makers. Now that the ball's rolling, everyone who's supposed get ICS will get it very soon. Everybody else... XDA has your back. XD
    lilsim89
    Reply Vote

  • I've accidently chose "Yes."

    I installed a CyanogenMod 9 on my Samsung Exhibit II 4G.
    Grayson Peddie
    Reply Vote

  • Running on both

    SGS2 and Transformer.
    Great update.
    rhonin
    Reply Vote

  • Only on Tab

    I recently got ICS as an OTA update for my Acer Iconia A500 tab. It has made a marked difference in how the tab behaves...for the better. I also like the fact that I can now use Chrome. It really helped me out with the bookmarks issue. Honestly, I think ICS on the A500 has given that latter a fresh lease of life - for about 6-8 months. That should be enough time for (1) Win 8 to appear on tabs (both versions) and (2) for better Android tabs with ICS pre-installed. Co-incidentally, it would also be time to upgrade my phone which currently runs GB (the latest version) to either a Win 8 phone (if available) or to an mid-level Android phone running ICS (preinstalled and by then hopefully fully stabilized) or maybe even JB!
    crystalsoldier
    Reply Vote

  • Enjoying ICS Daily

    I have ICS on my phone and my tablet. Both were acquired in 2012, so that is why. But either way, I really like them both.

    Biggest complaint is that the gmail app is inconsistent based on screen size. Why do the buttons on the reading pane need to move from bottom to top just because the screen is bigger?
    jglopic
    Reply Vote
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