[Galaxy S I9000 General] .Slane.:
Please read before post !

Again and again the same non-technical speak..

From 1.6 to 2.1 there's only ONE major update, the 2.0 SDK was release the Oct 26th 2009 and the 2.1 SDK the Jan 12th 2010, less than 3 months between each release. Epic Fail.

Importing a single APK is not the same than importing all the Touchwizz framework, even I'm agree th say that Touchwizz 4.x seems to work well under the SGS but eat much more RAM that the 3. And when you use a smartphone, you have some memory constraints (that implies LMK tunning, etc. etc.).

Nice to see what you didn't take a moment to read all the post here, just stupidly complaining as many here about drivers. As I already said here, Samsung doesn't make ALL chips components in the SGS, they have bought some to other companies which give BINARY drivers and/or Source code under NDA. In the two case, Samsung CAN'T release source code of these chips, live with it and stop dreaming. Chips makers are very reluctant about Open source.

Yeah, seems that you read only stupid posts about "I'll buy another brand" (which doesn't make better than Samsung in case of update).

Now, we're on XDA-Dev, only TECHNICAL reasons should be discussed. ICS with Touchwizz (to keep the SAME user experience from Eclair to ICS) implies two thing:

_ more RAM usage

_ more FLASH usage in /system

First point, RAM usage and problem:

The Samsung Galaxy S (i9000) is based on SoC Samsung Exynos 3110 (ARM Cortex A8) also know as Hummingbird S5PC110, this SoC have physically 512Mb RAM. The SGS is advertised to have 512Mb RAM. Take now the Samsung Galaxy S SL (i9003) which is based on SoC TI OMAP 3630 (Cortex-A8) also advertised as a 512Mb smartphone but with a 640Mb DDR SoC. When you boot under 2.3.x on stock ROM, the I9000 have nearly 330-335Mb free RAM and the I9003 have 455-460.

Having 128Mb difference is a huge problem, having less memory for SAME ADVERTISED RAM SIZE (Read this ten or thousand times !) implies to use much more LMK and have a real impact on user experience. There is a VERY good post about LMK by pikachu01 here. Read the "Best Practices" and think about it !

Samsung can make a ICS + Touchwizz ROM, but what the point if the SGS have 280/290Mb free RAM ? Many games (which eat more and more RAM) will shutter, background applications will be closed more often, etc. etc. What a MASSIVE improvement in user experience !

Second point the FLASH management:

We know for a long time know that the /system size is near 276Mb and can't even changed with repartition (see the Ramad post here). The AOSP code from Google for ICS fit in it (Onecosmics and TeamHacksung ROM prove it), but now think about things that Samsung must add to keep the SAME use experience ! You can have some clue in this thread. Having 1Gb or 4Gb internal SDcard means nothing about ability to have ICS, the problem lies in partitionning (and ability to change it !). Installing an TeamHacksung will change partition structure and implies to loose all data (Thanks to TB and NandDroidBackup) and it's far away that Kies can do.

The Nexus S and other phones debate :

The NS is based on the same SoC as the I9000 (but not the same front camera for example, remember binary drivers!) and will have ICS. Ok, but the SGS have a nearly full functioning ICS from TeamHacksumg and Onecosmics. The user experience is not really the same that a I9000 under Touchwizz. The "other" phone debate is like the difference between I9000 (and P1000) and I9003 (and P1010), the physically RAM in SoC and the RAM advertised. Mixed with the Flash problem, you have some keys to understand why some nearly powerful phone will have ICS and the SGS not.