“Ice Cream” Nexus S Update Put On Test By Google

Google has made the Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich update for its Nexus S smartphone update available to its employees.

The trial was revealed by Adel Saoud, AdSense policy applications and signal developer at Google, who made several posts about the test on social networking sites such as Twitter and Google+.

Internal Examinations

The posts have since been deleted, but Android Police has managed to retrieve the messages and posted screenshots of some of them.

In one post on Google+, Saoud said, “Just got Ice-cream Sandwich update on my Nexus S and it’s looking great.”

In another he wrote, “Yeah an OTA (over the air), but it’s an early one for Google employees so we test it further so it’s even more awesome when you guys get it. So sadly I can’t comment on it more at this time…”

Last month, Google confirmed that that the Nexus S would receive an Ice Cream Sandwich update, but admitted that Google’s first flagship device, the Nexus One, would be too old to receive the upgrade.

Google’s latest flagship smartphone, the Samsung-manufactured Galaxy Nexus, was the first Android device to be powered by Ice Cream Sandwich. The phone was announced in October and released in the UK last month.

Ice Cream Sandwich aims to unify the smartphone focussed Android 2.3 Gingerbread and the tablet-oriented 3.0 Honeycomb branches of the platform.

The software’s source code has been released into the public domain and boasts a number of improvements including better camera controls, support for near-field communication (NFC) and a redesigned interface.

Security improvements include facial recognition and Address Space Layout Randomisation (ASLR), which rearranges memory locations for various application components, making life difficult for hackers.