Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich source code released early

posted by Michael H. / Nov 14, 2011, 5:30 PM

Honeycomb and Ice Cream Sandwich source code released early

We had heard that the source code for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich wouldn't be hitting the AOSP (Android Open Source Project) repositories until November 17th, but Google has jumped the gun and made the code available to developers right now.

The report started in the Google Group called "Android Building", where Jean-Baptiste M. "JBQ" Queru a Software Engineer on the Android Open-Source Project at Google announced that the source code had been released, and that developers could download it. Of course, this is a good sign that the Galaxy Nexus will be released soon. But, it's an even better sign that the update race has begun.

As anyone in the root community knows, once the source code is officially released from Google, the Cyanogen developers of Team Douche will be working on building Cyanogen 9. The earliest updates we've heard about outside of the Nexus line has Ice Cream Sandwich hitting certain devices around January. We're pretty sure Cyanogen 9, based on Android 4.0, is likely to hit devices well before then. We'll definitely let you know when the first solid custom ROMs start hitting.

Many do point to this as the time that bigger manufacturers like Samsung, Motorola and HTC will be starting work on the upgrades for their devices, but we're not too sure how accurate that is, especially given that Notion Ink's CEO Rohan Shravan told us in September that Google had been seeding "crucial partners like chip vendors, [and] select OEMs" with ICS builds well before now. As we've said before, if a small manufacturer like Notion Ink can get early builds of ICS in order to start work on updates well before the source code release, it seems very likely the major hardware partners would also get that code.

Google has also technically released the Honeycomb source code since ICS was built on Honeycomb, not Gingerbread, but wants to focus on ICS. So, according to JBQ, Google hasn't "created any tags that correspond to the Honeycomb releases (even though the changes are present in the history.)” If you really want, the Honeycomb source is out there, but it seems a bit unnecessary with ICS being out as well.

source: Android Building Group via Androinica

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17 Comments

1. bossmt_2

Posts: 459; Member since: Oct 13, 2009

Come on Verizon, release the Galaxy Nexus ASAP. I want some ICS goodnees

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 5:44 PM 4

2. JLyc1

Posts: 3; Member since: Nov 02, 2011

On Your Mark. Get Set. Go.

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 5:44 PM 9

3. ZEUS.the.thunder.god unregistered

cooool. now lets see what sammy brings to the table with SGS III

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 5:45 PM 5

4. Slammer

Posts: 1515; Member since: Jun 03, 2010

This is going to be a very nice upgrade for Android. I look forward to the new features as well as the advancements on the current features. So far, Gingerbread has been far more solid in its operation over past iterations. I believe ICS will bring even more stability to the OS. John B.

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 6:10 PM 7

5. sorcio46

Posts: 435; Member since: Jul 27, 2011

Cyanogenmod Team get ready my Galaxy S needs your help :D !

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 6:16 PM 1

6. protozeloz

Posts: 5396; Member since: Sep 16, 2010

Who will be the first and when y devices will have a stable build, are questions I'm asking mysef now, for te sake of trying ICS I'm willing to give up my stock rom. (If I don't get a nexus by then )

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 6:24 PM 1

7. Jobes

Posts: 364; Member since: Oct 27, 2011

Ooo delicious, this makes me happy. The world will soon see the yummy goodness that its ICS.

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 6:53 PM 3

8. remixfa

Posts: 14605; Member since: Dec 19, 2008

awesome. a little mispromising though. CM cant do anything with the source code until they have the ICS drivers for the phones they are developing on. Thats not going to happen until manufacturers start dropping test roms for XDA and the rest to pick up. Im not sure if they can simply stuff the 2.3 drivers in there since its based off of honeycomb and not gingerbread. CM doesnt write the drivers, they use existing code and fiddle with it. Bottom line... be excited, but do not get your hopes up for a CM ROM all that soon. Probably not until at least the nexus devices get their update, so they have drivers to work from. Good news is when the nexus S gets its drivers, most of the galaxyS devices will be able to assemble working ROMS based off that. And maybe since Cyanogen is working for Samsung now, he can convince them to start dropping roms and system dumps sooner rather than later.

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 6:57 PM 2

9. beatsandmelody

Posts: 109; Member since: Nov 01, 2011

Well the first rule of CM is you do NOT ask for ETAs. So of course excitement is due but people should not ask when lol... It will be out when they are happy with it and feel it's ready. Also, from the youtube clip of the CM team answering questions at the Big Android BBQ, they mentioned that they do reverse engineering of drivers when OEMs do not provide them. do. Samsung does. Samsung also hired Steve Kondik, who started CM to begin with. That should be a bonus.

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 7:04 PM 0

10. remixfa

thats exactly what i'm hoping for, with samsung. :) they can only reverse engineer drivers from current ROMS from phones with ICS. cant do that from the generic system dump for ICS. the source code doesnt contain any drivers for chipsets in it.

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 7:14 PM 0

14. MichaelHeller

Posts: 2734; Member since: May 26, 2011

That may cause delays in getting Cyanogen 9 on phones, but since ICS is based on Honeycomb, it's likely that Cyanogen 9 will hit Honeycomb tablets before anything else. Those drivers would likely work easily enough.

posted on Nov 14, 2011, 10:04 PM 2

15. remixfa

ive started asking questions about it on G+ with some of the google open source masterminds. I'll let u know if i get an answer. Cyanogen only goes on what the team douche devs own. So hopefully one of them has a G-Slate.. lol That MIGHT work if you had a tegra2 phone, since almost all tablets come with a T2 chip, but its not going to work if u have another chipset like a snapdragon.. or use a different GPU. Hopefully I'll get an answer from someone deep in the know shortly. ill share it when i do.

posted on Nov 15, 2011, 7:11 AM 0

16. remixfa

GOOGLE+ RESPONCES Jean-Baptiste Queru (google open source project) - I've already released a set of binaries for Galaxy Nexus, which is the device that is known to work out of the box with that source tree. Other Google flagship devices will get similar binaries as they get upgraded, contracts allowing. For devices that Google wasn't directly involved in, it's really up to the manufacturer to release similar files. I wouldn't automatically expect that GPU binaries for older versions of Android will work well with ICS, as ICS pushes GPUs much harder. Elliott Polk - you need the driver binaries from the manufacturers. So right now you can only build a working img for the Galaxy Nexus (and aparently the pandaboard) So, I was correct. No ROMS for anything other than the G-Nexus until the manufacturers release the ICS drivers for their phones.. which normally is after a system dump. Oh well, at least we have a working start. :)

posted on Nov 15, 2011, 7:55 AM 0

17. remixfa

an interesting note, now that I re-read it, Jean Baptiste said " Other Google flagship devices will get similar binaries as they get upgraded, contracts allowing." so.. does that mean that manufacturers have to re-licence google apps n such to be able to upgrade devices to newer versions of android? Thats worth looking into. I guess that would have a lot to do with why some handsets never see an upgrade (not worth the re-licensing) and yes, im asking that very question right now to them :)