The Sprint version of the Nexus S finally gets Ice Cream Sandwich today.

Better 5 months late than never, I suppose. 

…from 1.6% to 2.9%.

ICS has been out for 5 months.

Time it took iOS 5.1 to go from 0% to 61%? Two weeks. (And technically only 2.4% of Android users even have the latest version of ICS: 4.0.3.)

Will Ice Cream Sandwich hit 10% penetration before Jellybean is a reality? Even 5%?

The race is on.

At least it’s no longer the OS for the 1%.

HTC posted the following update to their Facebook page:

HTC has been working hard to get its Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades ready, and we’re excited to announce that our first round of ICS upgrades will roll out by the end of March for the HTC Sensation, HTC Sensation 4G and HTC Sensation XE, followed soon there after by the HTC Sensation XL.

In addition, we can confirm Ice Cream Sandwich upgrades will be coming later this year to the HTC Rezound, HTC Vivid, HTC Amaze 4G, HTC EVO 3D, HTC EVO Design 4G, HTC Incredible S, HTC Desire S and HTC Desire HD. Stay tuned for more updates on Ice Cream Sandwich releases in the coming weeks.

In other words, roughly 5 months after the initial ICS roll-out, 3 HTC phones will finally get the new OS. A 4th will get it in an undisclosed time “soon” thereafter.

Meanwhile, “later this year”, 8 more HTC phones will get the update. Presumably, “later this year” stands for well past the 6-month mark after the initial ICS release — and potentially much later.

Let’s say it’s late summer that this happens for some of those phones. Who wants to bet that the next major release of Android, Jellybean, will be announced by then? 

Google I/O is June 27-29…

The good news: In the past month, the spread of Ice Cream Sandwich across Android devices has nearly doubled.

The bad news: “Nearly doubled” means going from 0.6% of devices to 1% of devices. 

Three months in, 1%. That’s progress.

Downside: 10 million-plus Android users getting screwed.

Upside: TouchWiz is living up to its name.

Google isn’t upgrading their flagship Nexus One to the new Ice Cream Sandwich flavor of Android. Why? It’s “too old”.

The Nexus One was released on January 5, 2010 — not even two years ago. 

Apple often gets dinged for cutting support to older hardware, forcing users to upgrade if they want the latest and greatest software. So I feel it’s necessary to point out that the iPhone 3GS is 7 months older than the Nexus One. And guess what it runs? Apple’s just-released latest and greatest operating system, iOS 5. 

Everyone seems confused about Samsung and Google postponing their Nexus Prime/Ice Cream Sandwich announcement at the last second. Perhaps I’m reading it incorrectly, but the statement seems to point to one thing:

Samsung and Google decide to postpone the new product announcement at CTIA Fall. We agree that it is just not the right time to announce a new product. New date and venue will be shortly announced.

The middle sentence, to me, suggests that they’re postponing it out of respect to Steve Jobs and Apple. 

The device/OS was set to be unveiled on Tuesday the 11th, which is in between when the iPhone 4S was announced (the 4th) and when it will go on sale (the 14th). Some people are interpreting this as Google/Samsung being afraid of going head to head. Others wonder if something is wrong with the device and/or the OS?

But again, I don’t think it’s either of those things. I think more likely is that their plan was to take a ton of shots at Apple and the iPhone during the announcement and now it would seem disrespectful to do so right after Jobs’ passing when all of Apple is in mourning. 

Update: Sure enough, Google just sent the following statement:

“We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.”