Not to be outdone by Apple with its recent iOS 5.1 announcement, nor HTC with its rollout to Sensations in Nordic countries, Samsung has announced that it will make the Android 4.0 ICS update for the International SGS2 (GT-I9100) available through Kies 2.0 on March 10th. 

The update will be also available OTA, but Kies 2.0 usually ends up being the most advisable way to go for Samsung device updates. According to the release the update supports face unlock, android beam, mobile data usage monitoring, and will not support flash or bluetooth 3.0 HS due to OS limitations. The Kies update will require 60 MB of free space, whereas the FOTA update will require 350 MB for the install. 

The update notes that there's no supported upgrade path from customized or unofficial previous firmware, so now is probably a good time to revert to a stock ROM if you intend to try the final update out. I've got my GT-I9100 ready and waiting, and we'll be sure to check it out and update with any performance updates.

Update: In a tweet (below), Samsung has recalled news of the update hitting March 10th. Samsung's announcement was prematurely posted by Samsung Filipino and the March 10th date is no longer valid. 

Source: Samsung

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  • mwarner1 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    As a UK resident it has always intrigued me as to why America uses this MM-DD-YY system. I can logically understand DD-MM-YY or YY-MM-DD, but who was the first to propose a non-largest <-> smallest and, more importantly, who thought it was a good enough idea to standardise it :)

    I guess I need to look this up myself!
  • mwarner1 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    After a little research, it seems the likely answers are:

    1. To mimic the way it was spoken (March 9th 2012)
    2. To break away from the European way of writing the date following the American Revolution
  • silverblue - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    I think there is a certain login with stating the month first on occasion; if something is happening months away, the month becomes more important than the actual day. Still, for general usage, dd/mm/yyyy is more helpful (plus there's a little bit of British pride going on here, hehe).

    Addresses, on the other hand... we write them generally the same, though they're upside down by default - it's easier to know the county or state where a letter is going before you narrow it down to a street address rather than vice versa. Can't understand why we've never opted to do it this way... but I digress.
  • dasgetier - Saturday, March 10, 2012 - link

    As an European, mm/dd continously takes me aback.

    Oh, and on a side note I think imperial units s**k (though I know they are not THAT bad to calculate with when you know the tricks).
  • silverblue - Monday, March 12, 2012 - link

    My mother was brought up with imperial and has never been brilliant with metric; I can't pretend to know all of imperial but I know enough to be able to know the equivalent in metric with little effort.
  • sintaxera - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    My family is all android (2 phones, 2 tablets) and the slow , sporadic, or even non-existent upgrades to android os due to different manufacturers willingness to support their products really pisses me off. Seriously considering going to Apple products when I upgrade. How far into the first quarter is Samsung going to wait to give us ICS for their former flagship device, the Galaxy tab 10.1? Even the original Ipad just got upgraded to ios5.
  • retrospooty - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    "My family is all android (2 phones, 2 tablets) and the slow , sporadic, or even non-existent upgrades to android os due to different manufacturers willingness to support their products really pisses me off. "

    Its not such a simple task. You want the best options, you have to wait for Android4. You want one size fits all, go with IOS. ROM upgrades are very complicated. This is why it takes so long. All Apple has to do is work on a couple models of virtually identical phones. Androids come in all shaped and sizes and specs so there is no single update that works.

    I have been using Android 4 on my droid3 (via Cyanogenmod9) and beleive me , its worth the wait, although, me running early alpha, and now beta ROM's I didnt wait LOL.
  • kittypuncher - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    Mostly agree with you both. Though I understand the reasons why, I'm becoming less sympathetic to this fragmented/slow release cycle. I don't want to load custom ROMs but the last thing I'll do is go back to Apple. I think a WP7 (or 8?) will likely be my next phone.
    Having said that though, if I don't have ICS by the end of this month, I will likely tempt my fate with Cyanogenmod...
  • mwarner1 - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    I agree:

    iOS - More fluid performance, much longer support, more optimised applications/games (due to a small number of device types), great build quality.

    Android: More flexible software (custom ROMs, custom launchers), more flexible ecosystem (install applications from sources other than the Android market), more choices of hardware, lower price points for equivalent hardware.

    Android and iOS take different totally (but complimentary) approaches, which means that iOS devices will always be less fexible, but will always have better software support than Android.

    For me (who loves trying custom ROMs & even makes them occasionally), Android is the more interesting option, but for the man on the street iOS devices are often the best choice, as long as they can afford the price.
  • silverblue - Friday, March 9, 2012 - link

    I didn't have a big problem with my Galaxy S because it was an international version that lacked the usual gubbins thrown in by carriers thus causing long delays. Froyo did take some time, but nowhere near as long as those in the States had to wait to get it on their networks. Gingerbread's time to market would've seemed like a vast improvement. That said, being on Windows Phone 7.5 should mean much more organised and frequent updates. I already know of two future updates over the next quarter for my Lumia 800... and I doubt that even O2 (Telefonica) can screw this up.

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