This is an early unreleased and unofficial version of ICS for the E4GT that can only be obtained by manually flashing your phone and voiding your Samsung warranty. ICS HAS NOT been officially released, and it will probably be another month or two before it's pushed out. I wanted to add this for those that see this post and wonder why hitting "Firmware updates" is not downloading a sweet Ice Cream Sandwich update for you. When ICS officially starts rolling out for the E4GT, you can bet your butt that the guys at Android Central will have a story on the front page.
Before I begin, keep in mind that the ICS builds for the E4GT that leaked over the weekend are early test builds, and as a result, contain bugs and may be missing features. It is very likely that things will change between now and the official release. But I wanted to come here and share my initial observations and thoughts, now that I've been able to install it.
The first impression I had was something along the lines of "okay this looks the same". Well, it does. ICS or not, it's still Touchwiz, and it basically looks exactly as the current EL29 firmware does. But there are some differences.
Here are some of my observations ...
- The signal bars, 3G and WiFi icons and some of the notification icons have changed. They're still grey however not the ICS blue.
- The stock lockscreen has been improved. The status bar shows at the top of the lockscreen, but the clock is removed (makes sense since it's in a widget on the screen) and you can now also include the Accuweather widget. It has an "ICS-like" unlock where a lock icon shows up anywhere you touch the screen and you drag out of the circle to unlock. It's actually quite good and rather unique.
Homescreen transitions have the nice animation with a border highlight and sort of a "slant-in" effect. Looping homescreens seems to have been removed again, or I haven't found the way to enable it (I'll add more on this in a minute when I discuss scrolling wallpaper).
The task manager has been updated to the ICS style manager that has a vertical scrolling list of open Applications.
Menus - This is where ICS really shows itself in the new ROM. The menus have changed a lot, and in some ways are more intuitive. The ROM is a bit strange. It's definitely a Touchwiz themed ROM, but there are elements of the blue ICS infused into it. You mainly see this is settings, sliders and menu options. I have a feeling we will see less and less of the blue ICS as work continues to go into the ROM theme.
Scrolling Wallpaper - Since this was an area of contention with the EL29 update, I thought I'd share what I've found so far. For those interested, you'll be happy to find that the Microbes and Nexus live wallpapers are back, as is scrolling wallpaper. However, as of this build, scrolling only works on the Live Wallpapers and the "Wallpapers" selection from the menu (I've attached a screenshot to illustrate what I'm talking about) Any wallpaper you select from the Galleries do not allow you to set in Landscape thus do not scroll. However, the wallpaper scrolling from the "Wallpapers" menu are glitchy and "stutter". In other words, it's bugged ...
which is why I believe they were removed in the EL29 update. They couldn't get it working in time and still meet Sprint's CIQ removal deadline. I'm now convinced that the ROM theme and UI changes in EL29 was Samsung infusing some of the elements of their ICS Touchwiz ROM into the EL29 update, probably to use the opportunity as a free user test. The Phone icon change, the Incoming Call screen and others are all present in the ICS ROM. I believe what broke scrolling wallpaper is the homescreen transition animation, and they still haven't gotten it working properly in the Touchwiz launcher. Still, assuming they work it out, I would expect scrolling wallpaper to return when official ICS is released.
As far as bugs go, there are surprisingly very few. With some adjustments, one could easily use this as a daily driver right now (although I'm not sure if I will yet heh). My GPS, data and phone worked very well right out of the gate.
Bugs I've observed so far ...
GPS causes pretty heavy battery drain and has issues getting a lock
Visual Voicemail force closes and basically doesn't work. I have a constant VM notification that I can't clear (force closing and clearing data fixes the FC and notification issue but it reoccurs upon receiving a new VM)
Scrolling wallpaper can randomly glitch out and stutter
I can't get Bluetooth to connect in my car, while it worked fine in my GB ROM
There is a toggle to add a % to the battery icon but it doesn't work
Notification LED is bugged. Notifications result is a solid blue LED light
WiFi will not auto-reconnect to my router. I have to toggle it off, then on again to reconnect
Sprint TV doesn't work (oh my the horror!)
I've attached some screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll see if I can answer them for you.
Before I begin, keep in mind that the ICS builds for the E4GT that leaked over the weekend are early test builds, and as a result, contain bugs and may be missing features. It is very likely that things will change between now and the official release. But I wanted to come here and share my initial observations and thoughts, now that I've been able to install it.
The first impression I had was something along the lines of "okay this looks the same". Well, it does. ICS or not, it's still Touchwiz, and it basically looks exactly as the current EL29 firmware does. But there are some differences.
Here are some of my observations ...
- The signal bars, 3G and WiFi icons and some of the notification icons have changed. They're still grey however not the ICS blue.
- The stock lockscreen has been improved. The status bar shows at the top of the lockscreen, but the clock is removed (makes sense since it's in a widget on the screen) and you can now also include the Accuweather widget. It has an "ICS-like" unlock where a lock icon shows up anywhere you touch the screen and you drag out of the circle to unlock. It's actually quite good and rather unique.
Homescreen transitions have the nice animation with a border highlight and sort of a "slant-in" effect. Looping homescreens seems to have been removed again, or I haven't found the way to enable it (I'll add more on this in a minute when I discuss scrolling wallpaper).
The task manager has been updated to the ICS style manager that has a vertical scrolling list of open Applications.
Menus - This is where ICS really shows itself in the new ROM. The menus have changed a lot, and in some ways are more intuitive. The ROM is a bit strange. It's definitely a Touchwiz themed ROM, but there are elements of the blue ICS infused into it. You mainly see this is settings, sliders and menu options. I have a feeling we will see less and less of the blue ICS as work continues to go into the ROM theme.
Scrolling Wallpaper - Since this was an area of contention with the EL29 update, I thought I'd share what I've found so far. For those interested, you'll be happy to find that the Microbes and Nexus live wallpapers are back, as is scrolling wallpaper. However, as of this build, scrolling only works on the Live Wallpapers and the "Wallpapers" selection from the menu (I've attached a screenshot to illustrate what I'm talking about) Any wallpaper you select from the Galleries do not allow you to set in Landscape thus do not scroll. However, the wallpaper scrolling from the "Wallpapers" menu are glitchy and "stutter". In other words, it's bugged ...
which is why I believe they were removed in the EL29 update. They couldn't get it working in time and still meet Sprint's CIQ removal deadline. I'm now convinced that the ROM theme and UI changes in EL29 was Samsung infusing some of the elements of their ICS Touchwiz ROM into the EL29 update, probably to use the opportunity as a free user test. The Phone icon change, the Incoming Call screen and others are all present in the ICS ROM. I believe what broke scrolling wallpaper is the homescreen transition animation, and they still haven't gotten it working properly in the Touchwiz launcher. Still, assuming they work it out, I would expect scrolling wallpaper to return when official ICS is released.
As far as bugs go, there are surprisingly very few. With some adjustments, one could easily use this as a daily driver right now (although I'm not sure if I will yet heh). My GPS, data and phone worked very well right out of the gate.
Bugs I've observed so far ...
GPS causes pretty heavy battery drain and has issues getting a lock
Visual Voicemail force closes and basically doesn't work. I have a constant VM notification that I can't clear (force closing and clearing data fixes the FC and notification issue but it reoccurs upon receiving a new VM)
Scrolling wallpaper can randomly glitch out and stutter
I can't get Bluetooth to connect in my car, while it worked fine in my GB ROM
There is a toggle to add a % to the battery icon but it doesn't work
Notification LED is bugged. Notifications result is a solid blue LED light
WiFi will not auto-reconnect to my router. I have to toggle it off, then on again to reconnect
Sprint TV doesn't work (oh my the horror!)
I've attached some screenshots for your viewing pleasure. Feel free to ask any questions here and I'll see if I can answer them for you.
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