Pocketnow has an image it says might be the rumored new Nexus line of tablet.

Take a look and see if you think it’s a sure fake or if it’s the real thing.  The debate rages as to whether it’s Samsung or Asus, 7.7″ or 10″.

When Google does actually drop the Nexus tablet, it might be some good competition for the iPad that has dwarfed the industry.  As you can see from the image it has all google apps and no indication as to any proprietary apps from a different vendor.  It also is plainly running ICS.  We’ll soon see when the tablet is actually released.

Samsung if finally pushing ICS to the Galaxy Sll in select countries today, then across the U.K. starting in about a week.  As far as the U.S. variants go, it will be coming along “soon.”  ICS came out about five months ago and people who own Samsung and HTC devices have been patiently waiting for their phones to get this awesome update, and it looks like Samsung is finally ready to deliver.

If you do happen to live in a country that is updating, you need to download Kies and connecting your device.

Stay tuned to see when the U.S. will get their ICS updates (or maybe Jellybean will be out by then!)

In a post on HTC’s Facebook page, the company stated the first HTC smartphones that will be getting an upgrade to Android 4.0 will be the HTC Sensation, the HTC Sensation 4G and the HTC Sensation XE. Those models should receive the Android 4.0 upgrade by the end of March. The post also said Android 4.0 will be available for owners of the HTC Sensation XL soon afterwards.

HTC also confirmed a number of its other Android smartphones will be getting the Android 4.0 update sometime later in 2012. The models listed include the HTC Rezound, the HTC Vivid, the HTC Amaze 4G, the HTC EVO 3D, the HTC EVO Design 4G, the HTC Incredible S, the HTC Desire S and the HTC Desire HD.

As usual with major operating system upgrades, the exact timing of when each phone will get the Android 4.0 update may vary widely and different wireless carriers will have different schedules for launching these updates. STAY TUNED!

*In my opinion if the Incredible s is receiving ice cream so should both the Thunderbolt and the Incredible 2.

Big thanks to neowin for the tip!

Last month HTC officially announced which deviced would receive the android 4.0 upgrade and when, well today it was LG to publish its list of what devices would receive the ice cream sandwich update and when.

According to the information shared, the Optimus 2X, the Optimus Black, the Optimus 3D and the Optimus LTE will be the first ones to get the refresh. Exact information about the roll-out process and availability is expected later on, in December, as well as additional wording on other phones that might get the update, given “it is compatible with the functionality, features and performance of other LG smartphones”.

Source: Facebook

For those CyanogenMod fans out there who were wondering if and when you would get to taste the delicious ice cream sandwich on your android devices, well some news was just shed via a twitter post from @cyanogen. In a Twitter post published on Tuesday, cyanogen confirmed they had begun working on CM9, and should be released sometime in January.   Since Google is holding the source code for Honeycomb tight, looks like for now the Mod Squad will be skipping CM8 and moving straight into CM9.

Source: @cyanogen via Twitter

Android started pushing the source code for v4.0.1 (which is the version that will be shipping on the Galaxy Nexus) last night. They note that this is a large push and not to sync just yet because it would probably be corrupt until their push is complete. This means that we could start seeing AOSP ROM developers coming out with ICS soon.
[showhide type=”pressrelease”]
Hi! We just released a bit of code we thought this group might be interested in.
Over at our Android Open-Source Project git servers, the source code
for Android version 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) is now available.
Here’s how to get it:Follow the instructions at
http://source.android.com/source/downloading.htmlCheck out the
‘ics-release’ branch:repo init -u
https://android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.0.1_r1
That’s it! However since this is a large push, please be aware that it
will take some time to complete. If you sync before it’s done, you’ll
get an incomplete copy that you won’t be able to use, so please wait
for us to give the all-clear before you sync.
This is actually the source code for version 4.0.1 of Android, which
is the specific version that will ship on the Galaxy Nexus, the first
Android 4.0 device. In the source tree, you will find a device build
target named “full_maguro” that you can use to build a system image
for Galaxy Nexus. Build configurations for other devices will come
later.
Unfortunately we still don’t have our Gerrit code review servers back
online. That remains our top priority though, and we hope to have them
back soon.
This release includes the full history of the Android source code
tree, which naturally includes all the source code for the Honeycomb
releases. However, since Honeycomb was a little incomplete, we want
everyone to focus on Ice Cream Sandwich. So, we haven’t created any
tags that correspond to the Honeycomb releases (even though the
changes are present in the history.)
JBQ, on behalf of the AOSP team.
—
Jean-Baptiste M. “JBQ” Queru
Software Engineer, Android Open-Source Project, Google.
Questions sent directly to me that have no reason for being private
will likely get ignored or forwarded to a public forum with no further
warning.
[/showhide]

Source: Google Groups via PPCG (Thanks djgallis)

Google and Samsung have reportedly postponed an October 11 event that was expected to include the launch of Android “Ice Cream Sandwich” and the Samsung Nexus Prime. Samsung’s U.K. division provided a statement to Engadget and SlashGear, which said:

“Samsung and Google have decided to postpone the Samsung Mobile Unpacked event during the CTIA in San Diego, previously scheduled for Oct. 11. Under the current circumstances, both parties have agreed that this is not the appropriate time for the announcement of a new product. We would ask for the understanding of our clients and media for any inconvenience caused. We will announce a new date and venue in due course.”

We sent a message to the Samsung officials in the U.S., who basically said they could not confirm nor deny the Samsung U.K. statement.

I would think the CTIA would be the perfect place to release such a device especially with the recent release of the Apple iPHone 4S. I guess we will have to wait for more clarification from either Samsung or Google on why the CTIA was not the right time to announce a new product. Some have speculated the delay might be related to the passing of Apple Chief Steve Jobs, but nothing has been confirmed.

The flagship Samsung Galaxy Nexus, also known as the Nexus Prime, is said to be a Verizon exclusive when it launches (likely sometime this quarter). Here’s what it will have, according to Boy Genius Report:

• Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich)
• 4.65-inch Super AMOLED HD with curved glass (1,280 x 720 resolution)
• TI OMAP 4460 1.2GHz dual-core Cortex A9 processor
• 1GB of RAM
• 32GB of built-in storage
• 5-megapixel camera on the back, 1.3-megapixel in the front
• 1080p HD video capture support
• LTE/HSPA depending on carrier
• Wi-Fi a/b/g/n
• NFC
• 9mm thin
• 1,750 mAh battery

For now we can watch the leaked video below:

Update: Engadget has reported a new batch of rumored specs from over at the GSM Arena, it seems a Google employee has said that the 4.64-inch Super AMOLED HD display mentioned above is just about the only spec that made the final cut. The The processor is more likely to be a dual-core 1.5GHz Exynos with an accompanying dual-core PowerVR SGX543MP2 graphics chip. That rear facing camera will be 8 megapixels with a newly beefed up sensor. The handset should also ship with a 2,050mAh battery. So I guess we will have to stay tuned as the rumor mill keeps spitting out new specs on this Android Monster.

With iPhone 5 on the horizon, Google needs to do something to catch/keep our interest in Android and in the highly competitive marker of smartphones aside from new devices the best way to shake things up is a new OS!!! Google is trying just this with Ice Cream Sandwich!

I just made the leap from Froyo to Gingerbread on my phone (haven’t even used Honeycomb yet) and here we are looking at a new OS rumored to come out as soon as early October to compete with the highly anticipated iPhone 5.

According to this article some of the new features/improvements of ICS (Ice Cream Sandwich) are USB host support and the highly anticipated music and movie rentals. Google is rolling out their movie rental service to devices soon and it will consist of movie rentals starting at $1.99 per rental. You have 30 days to view the movie from download date and 24 hours to complete it after you start to view the movie (more information found here). The music service will be like a cloud server to download your music collection to for use on your phone.

More information will be sure to come out as we get closer to release date, but with a lot of big phones closing in on their 2 year anniversary (upgrade time) and the projected release of new devices soon, I anticipate quite the buzz for a while!!

How about you guys? What do you think the chances are of Google holding it’s own against the new version of the heavy-hitting iPhone? What features would you like to see in ICS, or what features do you think it will need to compete with iPhone 5?

Sources: Phonearena   BGR   Talkandroid