So Awesome. Just so happened to look down at my Google Plus page and noticed a googler saying something about Android 4.0 is available…now. Wow. The rumor as we stated earlier was that it won’t be ready until the 17th (Thursday), but that was just a rumor. The truth is that ICS is ready for developers.

Here’s how to get it:Follow the instructions at
source.android.com/source/downloading.htmlCheck out the
‘ics-release’ branch:repo init -u
android.googlesource.com/platform/manifest -b android-4.0.1_r1
That’s it!

What does that mean for us, the Mainstream? As said before this will allow users who’s android smartphone is not on the official list to be on an independent Developers list. What does that mean? Say you spent a lot of money for the Nexus One. It’s over a year old and the hardware isn’t really fast enough to run the official update. That’s why Google said that it won’t go to Android 4.0. However, a developer or team of developers can find ways to get ice cream sandwich running on Nexus One with enough hacks to make it usable. Basically the carriers and big companies want us to buy new hardware every 6 months to keep their stock holder’s happy while the rouge, opensource developers just want us happy.

There are plenty of Developers out their that will start working on your favorite’s phone’s version of the latest Android. Of course www.cyanogenmod.com/ is a team of Android Developers with a long list phones they are working on to give you the latest version of software, but there are others too. Roebeet is an excellent Tablet dev and there are tons in the XDA-Developers FORUMS just waiting to get their hands on this source code. By next week you will be staring at your old smartphone sporting new software…Awesome!

ICS is coming to AOSP – Android Building | Google Groups.