Google: No Ice Cream Sandwich For Nexus One

Google's original Nexus One will not get an official upgrade to Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, it has been confirmed, with only the Nexus S getting the latest version of the smartphone platform. While the Nexus S will get updated "within weeks" of Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) going live, Google's Hugo Barra confirmed to the Telegraph, the exec admitted that the Nexus One hardware was simply too old to support the new OS.

"The operating system is thought through with the needs of the next three years in mind; it's a wholesale revamp of the way people interact with the phone" Barra said of ICS, something that will come as cold comfort to Nexus One owners whose device was only announced in January 2010. Many will still be within their original two-year contract, forced to watch later Nexus adopters – who picked up the Nexus S after it was launched at the end of December.

As for Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmert's recent comments that Android demanded a computer science degree in order to get to grips with, Barra was not impressed. "Android, especially this new version 4.0, is an incredibly intuitive platform – the best one we've ever built" he insisted. "There are power user features, but there is no need for an instruction manual or a computer science degree."

We spent hands-on time with Ice Cream Sandwich back at the Galaxy Nexus launch earlier this week. The smartphone will hit shelves in November, with open-source code availability tipped for the same time. More details on Android 4.0 in our full hands-on.

Ice Cream Sandwich hands-on: