Ice Cream Sandwich to hit Galaxy S II soon

Back in December, Verizon Wireless took the wraps off the Samsung Galaxy Nexus, the first smartphone to run Google's Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich operating system.

Now, three months later, Samsung will begin introducing Ice Cream Sandwich on a range of additional devices, including the Galaxy Note, the Galaxy S II, and the Galaxy Tab 8.9 tablet computer. In an announcement on Facebook, Samsung reps said the Galaxy S II – a highly-acclaimed phone which originally ran the Android 2.3 Gingerbread software – would be the first to receive the update.

But there's a catch: Only consumers in Europe and Korea can currently access the software; the UK will see the update next week. Users in other markets, such as the United States and Canada, will have to wait to get their hands on Ice Cream Sandwich. (Samsung says a wider roll-out will occur "gradually"; no precise date was given.) 

Android 4.0 has been received rapturously by critics, who have praised the speed and "cohesiveness" of the OS. "Ice Cream Sandwich is clearly the best version of the Android operating system," wrote a reviewer at ZDNet, way back in December. Among the improvements over past iterations of Android are drag-and-drop folders, a tabbed Web browser, and the Android Beam NFC functionality. 

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