Well, E4GT owners, today is the day you've been waiting for (unless you've rooted and flashed a custom ICS ROM, in which case, you're no longer waiting for anything): the official ICS update is now rolling out to your device. As expected, the update brings a host of new features:

  • A refined, evolved user interface that is simple, beautiful and useful
  • Face Unlock: use state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to unlock your phone with a smile
  • Redesigned camera which introduces panorama mode, effects like silly faces and background replacement, and a powerful photo editor
  • Android Beam™: quickly share web pages, apps, contacts and YouTube™ videos with your friends by simply tapping two Near Field Communication (NFC)-enabled phones together
  • Web browser now lets you sync Google Chrome™ bookmarks, request full desktop versions of sites, see your open tabs in a new layout and even store web pages for offline reading
  • People: browse friends, family and coworkers, see their photos in high-resolution and check their latest status updates from Google+
  • Improved keyboard with incredibly accurate typing, an inline spell checker and improved copy and paste support
  • New Calendar app that lets you add events quickly, sync with Google Calendar™ or Microsoft Exchange and even pinch to adjust your calendar display
  • Redesigned Gmail™ app that now lets you swipe between conversations to catch up quickly, and search for emails even without a data connection
  • Google+ integration that lets you hangout and video chat with up to 10 friends using your front-facing camera

Notice the part in italics up there? Yep, it says "NFC-enabled phones" - but the E4GT doesn't even have NFC! Good job, Sprint.

The update started its rollout today, and should hit all users' phones within "the next month" according to Sprint. You can see if it's available on your device now by heading into Settings > About phone > System updates > Update Android.

Oh, and don't forget that Samsung published the kernel source code for this build yesterday, which should make thing a lot more fun for users still running the stock build.

Enjoy!

[Sprint 1, 2]