Google won’t release Android 4.0 for the Nexus One (but someone else probably will)

Google Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will ship soon on the Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone — but Google is also preparing to release a software update that will bring Android 4.0 to the Samsung Nexus S phone which was launched earlier this year.

Unfortunately Google’s original developer phone — 2010’s Google Nexus One, will apparently not be getting an official Ice Cream Sandwich update. Android Product Management Director Hugo Barra tells The Telegraph that the phone is too old.

That probably comes as news to the hackers already working to port Google’s new operating system to the aging smartphone. As you can see in the video below, right now ICS is pretty slow on the Nexus One, but we’re looking at an early build based on the Android 4.0 emulator image.

Once Google releases the source code for Ice Cream Sandwich, I suspect the developers behind CyanogenMod and other custom ROMs for the Nexus One and other phones will probably bring Android 4.0 to older devices such as the Nexus One.

Still, it’s a shame to see that Google won’t be offering the update to a smartphone that’s less than two years old — especially since the Nexus line of phones are the only phones Google has complete control over when it comes to software updates.

There are also tools for users stuck with Android 2.3 that want to make their phones look like they’re running Android 4.0. For a rather thorough visual transformation, you’ll probably need to root your device and install a custom ROM.

But there’s also a free app called ICS Launcher which runs on most Android devices, and it will give you a home screen and app launcher that looks like the Android 4.0 default.