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Samsung Galaxy Note Android 4.0 ICS update is here

by Mark Tyson on 11 May 2012, 10:28

Tags: Samsung (005935.KS), Google (NASDAQ:GOOG)

Quick Link: HEXUS.net/qabgkf

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Samsung has started to roll out Ice Cream Sandwich updates for its Galaxy Note smartphone/tablet/ phablet. The update, weighing in at over 300Mb, has been installed by several UK Note users who bought the phone SIM free. People were expecting this update in March but obviously it’s now late. ICS was unveiled in October last year and it’s been slow to get ported to user’s mobiles, if indeed it will even be made available for your particular smartphone/network combination.

Part of the delay in Samsung’s case is, we expect, due to the TouchWiz interface they merge into the operating system. Also with the Galaxy Note there are an additional suite of pen tools, apps and widgets which take time to program. Samsung has called these stylus friendly bits the “Premium Suite”. At launch the Galaxy Note had S Pen enabled apps including S Choice, S Planner and S Memo. New apps for in the Premium Suite for the Galaxy Note with ICS include the S Note app for note taking over web pages, maps and images and My Story to make digital greetings cards. The update is also supposed to bring performance improvements to the phablet.

 

Above in the video a (German) user compares side by side a Gingerbread Galaxy note (left)
with an updated ICS Galaxy Note (right).

 

If you are a Galaxy Note user and have not received an over-the-air update notification you can try and do it via Samsung Kies on your desktop computer. In this was several users have reported update successes.

The Samsung Galaxy Note has, since launch, confounded critics by selling well (over 5 million units sold by March this year) and doing so at a rather high price which is a plus for Samsung and hopefully will spur the company on to take more chances in being innovative and inventive. The ICS and Premium Suite update should make the Galaxy Note an even more attractive proposition to people who are interested in this in-between form factor smart connected device.



HEXUS Forums :: 7 Comments

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Nothing for me on unbranded UK note… I thought it was only German unbranded that had the update.

Edit: Definitely only German has the update - http://www.sammobile.com/firmware/?page=3&t=1&o=1&m=GT-N7000&r=1#modelsa
What about my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? Come on Samsug!
Custom roms ftw! I have ics on my orange San Francisco XD
if you think samsung is slow to pump out ICs just look at LG! Meant to be Q2… still no word and it seems LG italy or something was saying its been delayed for them and now due q3! Another EU LG rep said it doesnt concern the eu and its still on track for q2 but we have had no leaks which suggest there isnt anything… :(.

Its funny, all they need todo is get Nvidia to agree to give the code to CM developers and we would be well past this already! LG roms are always made better by third parties so i dont see why it takes them so long todo it, they only need to do the bare essentials and let the rest fix it :P.

Good luck getting ICS on your samsungs! I loved ICS in cm9 on my o2x but its not ready :(
s_kinton
What about my Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1? Come on Samsug!
I got ICS on my Transformer ‘101 end February, and I upgraded my daughter’s SE Arc S last month (official ROMs - not an xda-dev specials). Definitely worth the upgrade - especially on the tablet. :mrgreen:

Maybe you Samsung owners need to do what the SE ones did and make a lot of fuss on Samsung's support forums? That said, I thought Samsung were one of the companies that had apologised for past heel dragging on updates and had promised to “get with the programme” and do ‘em a lot faster.

Still could be worse, from the various posts on xda-dev’s I've seen, LG owners are still getting a raw deal… :(