To date, over 20 million people worldwide have bought Samsung's smashing Galaxy S II smartphone since its May 2011 release.
That's a lot of owners waiting for their Ice Cream Sandwich.
Since the release of the first Android 4.0, or "Ice Cream Sandwich" device -- Samsung's Galaxy Nexus -- in December, many Android smartphone and tablet owners have similarly been waiting patiently for their upgrades. Though ICS updates have begun to roll-out to some devices, many of the most popular Android smartphones, including the Galaxy S II, have yet to receive their official Android 4.0 upgrades.
According to a post on the Samsung FAQ webpage, the Galaxy S II had been scheduled for a worldwide Ice Cream Sandwich update on March 10; that text has since been wiped from the site, and Samsung has officially backed off the claim (on Twitter, in Korean). The tweet doesn't say exactly when the GS2 will receive Ice Cream Sandwich, only that the March 10th report was premature.
Here's a screenshot of the page, and the promise, via Engadget:
Previously, a post on Samsung Israel's official Facebook page said that Israeli Galaxy S II owners would begin to get Android 4.0 on March 15; that date, of course, does not necessarily apply to American Galaxy S II owners. The American mobile carriers, for example, all have to test Samsung's update before they will approve it to be sent out to customers, and there's no word on whether we're even at that stage yet.
Samsung has promised that the Galaxy S II will indeed be one of the smartphones that receives its Ice Cream Sandwich update, but it has never given a precise date. In December 2011, the company promised that the GSII would get ICS by the end of March 2012, which is approaching quickly. Before releasing to the public, Samsung must first overlay its TouchWiz user interface, and it has previously confirmed that new Ice Cream Sandwich features Face-Unlock and Android Beam, which allows for the wireless transfer of content between two Android devices, will arrive on the Galaxy S II.
We've reached out to Samsung for comment on when exactly Galaxy S II owners in America will be tasting Ice Cream Sandwich and will update when they respond. With the self-imposed end of March deadline for the update approaching, a definite answer is likely coming soon.
UPDATE: A Samsung spokesperson sent HuffPost the following statement via email:
Samsung is in close communication with both Google and our carrier partners to upgrade eligible devices to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich as quickly and as smoothly as possible. Specific models that are upgradable to ICS will vary by market. Other specifics for the ICS upgrade in the U.S. have not been announced.