Ice Cream Sandwich For Milestone

Search This thread

bandroid842

Senior Member
Aug 15, 2010
302
34
Here is the inevitable question, given yesterday's event. I have been researching and it seems the tech requirements for ICS are the same as those for Gingerbread. Of course, given how Gingerbread has been very heavy on the Milestone, I know that even a moderate increase in tech requirements would be too much on the Milestone. But does it have a chance in any way? And can we backport some of the features (e.g. new Copy-Paste) to CM6 and CM7?
 

LuigiC6

Senior Member
Dec 7, 2010
275
41
OnePlus 3
OnePlus 6
Here is the inevitable question, given yesterday's event. I have been researching and it seems the tech requirements for ICS are the same as those for Gingerbread. Of course, given how Gingerbread has been very heavy on the Milestone, I know that even a moderate increase in tech requirements would be too much on the Milestone. But does it have a chance in any way? And can we backport some of the features (e.g. new Copy-Paste) to CM6 and CM7?

I was waiting for someone to ask this ahah My guess is that when Cyanogen comes out with their version of ICS, Kabaldan or some other developer will try and port it to the milestone. Only time will tell...
 

cronot

Senior Member
Jul 1, 2008
224
465
Campinas
As Kabaldan noted, there's no way to know for sure until the sources are released, and that should take a little while still.

My guess: No, I don't think ICS is going to happen for the Milestone, at least not in an useful way. Along the history of Android releases, no matter what Google said about how a new release compares against an older release in resource usage, every new Android release always required a little bit more RAM than the release before: Froyo required more RAM than Eclair, but as long as you don't stuff your phone full with apps and you stick to a relatively "light" usage pattern, the Milestone still handled it pretty well. Then Gingerbread again required more RAM than Froyo, but now with Gingerbread we're really on the edge of what Milestone can handle - if you don't stick with a light usage pattern, you are sure to run into apps you need open being closed because of low RAM. I just can't see the situation improving, or even at best staying the same, with ICS.

I think a phone with at least 512Mb (like, say, SGS1 and many others released in the past year and a half) is most likely to be able to handle ICS with little downsides, but the Milestone obviously isn't in that league. The Milestone is a 2+ year old phone anyway.
 
Last edited:
  • Like
Reactions: milaq and rampee
T

thre3aces

Guest
As Kabaldan noted, there's no way to know for sure until the sources are released, and that should take a little while still.

My guess: No, I don't think ICS is going to happen for the Milestone, at least not in an useful way. Along the history of Android releases, no matter what Google said about how a new release compares against an older release in resource usage, every new Android release always required a little bit more RAM than the release before: Froyo required more RAM than Eclair, but as long as you don't stuff your phone full with apps and you stick to a relatively "light" usage pattern, the Milestone still handled it pretty well. Then Gingerbread again required more RAM than Froyo, but now with Gingerbread we're really on the edge of what Milestone can handle - if you don't stick with a light usage pattern, you are sure to run into apps you need open being closed because of low RAM. I just can't see the situation improving, or even at best staying the same, with ICS.

I think a phone with at least 512Mb (like, say, SGS1 and many others released in the past year and a half) is most likely to be able to handle ICS with little downsides, but the Milestone obviously isn't in that league. The Milestone is a 2+ year old phone anyway.

You never know. After all the point of Ics is to get all devices in the same version.

Sent from my HTC EVO 3D X515m using XDA App
 

cronot

Senior Member
Jul 1, 2008
224
465
Campinas
You never know. After all the point of Ics is to get all devices in the same version.

Emphasis mine. I think you're taking that statement, that you've probably heard from Google and other sources, out of context.

ICS is supposed to unify the codebase for the Android OS, yes - for different form factors, i.e. Tablets and Smartphones. And that's it. It's not a silver bullet that's supposed to cover ALL Android devices.
 

M4zinkaiser

Senior Member
Sep 24, 2009
113
5
Milano
I see the SDK on RC14, give a try ;) of course i'm pessimist too.. already with Ginger everytime i open an heavy app the home collapse for free usefull ram.
 

Ok_Kaleidoscope5109

Senior Member
Dec 29, 2009
2,624
709
i think we should honestly start thinking of upgrading our phones... this phone is just far too ancient. It's like asking for iOS 4 or iOS5 on the iPhone 2G... Impossible...
 

M4zinkaiser

Senior Member
Sep 24, 2009
113
5
Milano
Physical limit sucks >.>, but agree with dmo... it's pointless trying to use Win 7 on P4 hardware single channel xD. About that RAZR is extremely sexy and got my attention... and i read an article where they point out the UK version could have bootloader unlocked o_O, (and ICS update on mid 2012, but i rely on xda dev, like always and not direct support from M).
 

dt0

Senior Member
Apr 7, 2011
63
9
I'm sorry, but I gave up on my Milestone and bought a Galaxy S2.

For too long I've seen that the only major development this phone receives is through (very appreciated) kabaldan's work, and that's not acceptable.
Motorola abandoned this phone way too soon, yet at the same time refused to unlock it so that the skilled programmers stuck with this piece of hardware would be able to do something about it.

Not going to choose Motorola again anytime soon until they start giving their users the services appropriate to a smartphone (be it long term support or unlocked bootloaders).
 

mohitrocks

Senior Member
Aug 15, 2010
829
581
Samsung Galaxy Z Fold3
I'm sorry, but I gave up on my Milestone and bought a Galaxy S2.

For too long I've seen that the only major development this phone receives is through (very appreciated) kabaldan's work, and that's not acceptable.
Motorola abandoned this phone way too soon, yet at the same time refused to unlock it so that the skilled programmers stuck with this piece of hardware would be able to do something about it.

Not going to choose Motorola again anytime soon until they start giving their users the services appropriate to a smartphone (be it long term support or unlocked bootloaders).

There are various other people who greatly contribute to the milestone modding community, and I'm sorry to hear that you don't understand that. Yes, while I too believe kabaldan has made some noteworthy and astounding contributions to the milestone modding community, he is not the only one and you should not just neglect the efforts of other developers.

Although I have to agree with you in the case that the motorola milestone's time to shine is over. While we can overclock the processor and apply various to achieve better performance, with the lack of ram and the inability to play most memory-intensive apps I do believe it is time for an upgrade. Finally, if I misinterpreted your comment, please let me know and I will try to change my comment accordingly.

Now about the Galaxy Nexus:

Although the Galaxy Nexus compared to a lot of the other competition seems to have underwhelming specs, it is still the first ice cream sandwich phone which Google and Samsung sat together which means that the hardware will be optimized for the software and also that the developer base would probably be extremely huge because of the number of consumers purchasing this product. ( I mean look at the Nexus One!) The only problem that I see with the Galaxy Nexus is that the GPU is 4 years outdated so it might not be the best phone to get but then again how many games do you really play on your phone? (I think the GPU is identical to the GPU in the Nexus S but apparently the processor is more-so tailored for multitasking and better performance, but not gaming)

Edit: Sorry for the partially irrelevant post :S
 
Last edited:

mikeszf

Senior Member
Jan 31, 2011
220
38
My milestone can barely run gingerbread, I have to use the less memory consuming apps for a semi-smooth phone, I don't think milestone can run ICS and if it does, it will be really slow
 

heorung

Senior Member
Aug 24, 2010
271
51
Can we port a lite version of ICS to Milestone by remove some unnecessary features : NFC , Android Beam , Face Unlock ( because MS don't have font-facing camera) ?
 

puffo81

Senior Member
Apr 20, 2010
345
42
Bologna
Even Windows 7 is smoother than Vista, and 8 seems to be lighter too.

Mi friends report me that iOS 5 runs better than 4 even on 3GS.

So we could have a good chance to port ICS with better results than GB on our MS.. finger crossed!!! :)
 

BoyBawang2

Senior Member
Nov 25, 2008
637
22
Maybe rip some needless features of ICS. It's just the hardware UI Acceleration that is important
 

vadonka

Senior Member
Jul 25, 2007
2,060
2,740
Debrecen
milestone was a great phone, no doubt. the main problem is that the motorola customer service is terrible all around the world. in fact where im live hungary, the last motorola reseller closed permanently and the last customer service company moving out from the country, so the only option to take any motorola product to a bad repair service what is sending motorola phones to the closest service depo, like czeh republic. sometimes this is taking for 1-2 months.

this is happening many other country too, the only hope that google open their eyes and realise that not abandon the motorola brand (what is part of the big google branch now) and do something or else the motorola sooner or later going into the garbage.

i sold out my motorola, however i really like it, especially the hw keyboard, but i cant run many apps in recent days what i needed for my job, and my company buy for me a new phone. first i just retired my moto, packed to the original box nicely, but one of my friend told me that buy my milestone. in time i realise my new phone is so much faster than the moto was, that im not missed the greatest thing of the milestone: the hw keyboard.

so i decided to sell my milestone to my friend..

once again without Kabaldan this phone was a useless metal piece long time ago, so id like to thank you for all the hard work!

im with cm7 in my new phone, so cm7 always in my phone hearth:)

milestone is my first android phone ever and i never forget this!
 

Top Liked Posts

  • There are no posts matching your filters.
  • 9
    Well, yes, I'll try to get ICS (CM9) to boot on Milestone.
    Please don't ask for ETA, it'll certainly take some time.
    Also, be prepared that ICS might not be very usable on Milestone in the end in spite of all the best efforts, due to its hw limits.
    9
    CM9. But CM9 is still almost stock AOSP, so there's not much difference.
    7
    I wonder why Kabaldan hasn't released his work yet? It already is a good piece of software.. ^^

    I can live without a camera in my phone.. :p

    Apart from what mcdevtingz mentioned... ;)
    ... call me perfectionist, but there always appears something that I'd like to try to fix first, before uploading the build.
    Like the SIM PIN unlock issue, fixed just now :)
    https://github.com/nadlabak/android_hardware_ril/commit/995c53e9d6b9b114b8f1142ac7f54f04d4421e0e
    7
    Hero has actually 288MB RAM. And it's not hdpi like Milestone (it's only 320x480).

    But it doesn't matter anyway - the whole point of ICS is in the hw accelerated UI.

    Who cares about some ICS port without hardware acceleration of graphics?
    I pity the users of such thing...

    Btw., my Milestone is working very fine. It does all what I expected from it (and more) very well ;) .

    I'm still waiting for the ultimate qwerty device that will be worth the upgrade from Milestone to appear on market.
    And I'll continue to try to make my Milestone experience as good possible while waiting... :D.
    6
    Unfortunately, ICS expects new hw drivers at least for GPU, audio, camera and touchscreen.
    GPU libs have been always closed source, this is the issue number one. No one is interested in ICS without hw acceleration of graphic...
    Our closed source libaudio (used also by the proprietary closed source gsm/umts subsystem) should be replaced by new libs in /system/lib/hw.
    Our proprietary libcamera should be replaced by new camera library in /system/lib/hw as well.
    Touchscreen requires either change in kernel via hacking module (quite complicated) or at the user space side (complicated as well).

    At this point, ICS for Milestone looks very improbable - huge amount of work with very high possibility to be all in vain in the end.

    Unless some much more qualified devs than me will do miracles allowing to interface the older (froyo!) proprietary libs under ICS, there won't be no ICS joy for Milestone.

    Simply put: don't hold your breath!