As expected, shortly after Google released the source code for Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich last night, independent developers started to confirm that they’ll be working with the new software. The founder of the popular CyanogenMod custom firmware for Android devices posted a note on Twitter suggesting that CyanogenMod 9 could be available in around 2 months.
If you’re scratching your head trying to figure out what happened to CyanogenMod 8, the team plans to skip that version number. CM7 is based on Google Android 2.3, and the next version would have been based on Android 3.0 if Google had ever released the source code. Since Android 4.0 is now available, CM9 is next in line.
Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich includes a number of updates including a new user interface designed to work equally well on phones and tablets, a new People app which replaces the traditional contact app, an improved keyboard, better voice recognition, system-wide spell-checking, and more.
CyanogenMod’s custom firmware is currently compatible with dozens of Android phones and tablets and offers advanced features that aren’t often included on phones including the ability to take screenshots, run applications that require root access, and toggle your GPS, WiFI, Bluetooth, or other settings from the notification tray.
The CyanogenMod team doesn’t usually give precise ETAs for upcoming software releases, so it’s likely that 2 months is a very rough guess. But CyanogenMod typically offers nightly releases and release candidates before launching major updates — so while we may have to wait 2 months or longer for the full version of CM9 it’s likely that you’ll be able to download a test build much sooner.
I’ve been on cm7.1 nightlies for quite awhile now (around build #130). For the average user, the developers are very good at getting the majority of features working only after a few weeks of nightlies.