Tasteless Ice Cream Sandwich

Last Wednesday I rushed to install Android 4 (aka Ice Cream Sandwich) as soon as my Samsung Galaxy Note notified me it was ready to do so. It took about an hour to download and upgrade and the process went smoothly. But my joy did not last long.

First the update cleared all my home screen settings. Two dozen or so carefully selected icons and widgets went to the recycle bin and could not be recovered. I was presented with a new, empty home screen. Well... this is not how users should be treated with an upgrade. Samsung and Google, it seems you are too much in a rush!

Then about early afternoon on that day the phone beeped signaling low battery state. It has never happened before. The Note had had no problem running the whole day on a single charge, before the upgrade. Of course the upgrade process itself required a lot of radio transmission and processor work, but still 7 hours on a charge meant it lasted about 60% shorter than usual.

It is a bit better now, but according to my observations, the Ice Cream Sandwich on the Samsung Note consumes at least 50% more battery power, compared to the Gingerbread (Android 2.3), the Note came originally with. This means I end up the day on battery fully depleted, while I used to have 25%-30% left before the upgrade.

ICS may have many improvements. But the battery drain kills the entire effort Google took to develop the new OS. It may equally be Samsung's fault. Too few data points now to tell. But even if it is summer now, I would stay away from the Ice Cream Sandwich. It may taste better in the fall.