Samsung Reportedly Reevaluating Android 4.0 ICS Upgrade Plans For Galaxy S

Last week, Samsung caused quite a ripple in the blogosphere when it announced that it would not be upgrading the original Galaxy S smartphone or the 7-inch Galaxy Tab to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich because of hardware constraints. Now, reports are coming in from Korea stating that Samsung is reevaluating its position, and that it is going back to the drawing board to see if it can make the upgrade work on the older hardware.

Samsung initially said that Android 4.0 was too resource intensive and took up too much memory when paired with Samsung's custom TouchWiz treatment, which includes new icons, wallpapers, custom apps, and more. Users were quick to call bull on Samsung, as the Google Nexus S, which uses essentially the same hardware as the Galaxy S smartphone, was already being upgraded to Android 4.0 and it had no issues running the new software without Samsung's customizations. Many took offense at the position that Samsung held that it was withholding the upgrade because it wanted to include its own custom software interface with it.

Now reports claim that Samsung says that it will take another look at the upgrade options for the Galaxy S and Galaxy Tab in response to the strong customer backlash it has received over the past weekend. The company does note that the hardware on the older devices is limited, especially in the area of storage space for system software, but it will be looking for ways to make it work if at all possible.

HTC faced a similar situation when it announced that it would not be upgrading the original HTC Desire smartphone to Android 2.3 Gingerbread because the phone's storage could not handle the new operating system along with HTC's Sense UI customizations. Amidst a storm of complaints from users, HTC eventually removed enough of its own software components from Android 2.3 for the Desire and released the upgrade to users.