Samsung Galaxy S to get a Value pack update instead of ICS

Despite Samsung's recent announcement that it is to reconsider its decision about the Galaxy S ICS update, it appears that the former flagship won't get an official taste of the latest Android ROM.

According to the latest rumor the Samsung I9000 Galaxy S will get a Value pack update, instead of the real Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich. The value pack update is said to improve the user experience by bringing some of the ICS features to the Gingerbread ROM. Better web browsing, multi-tasking and new widgets were explicitly mentioned, but there's no saying if other apps will be updated as well.

Samsung did a similar thing with their low-end Bada phones, Wave525 and Wave533, which were deemed unable to run Bada 2.0 and were promised a Value pack update instead.

Obviously, Samsung decided that the I9000 Galaxy S hardware would be unable to provide satisfactory user experience with Android 4.0 ICS and TouchWiz on top. Now that might as well be true, but the Galaxy S is fully capable of running the stock ICS, as proved by the guys over at XDA.

So maybe it would have been best if Samsung released an optional ICS update without the TouchWiz launcher and let people decide which one they prefer, but unfortunately that didn't happen. Of course, you can still have that, but you will have to go the dark ways of manual flashing and voiding your warranty in the process.

Source