Nexus S Ice Cream Sandwich update on hold but will start again soon

Nexus S Ice Cream Sandwich update on hold, Christmas Android Beaming Star Wars fight dreams dashed

If you are a Nexus S owner and were planning to use the NFC force this Christmas your hopes may have been dashed because Google has halted the Ice Cream Sandwich downloads for the time being. Well, you do still have NFC but not with some of the newer interfaces that Android Beam brings along for the ride in Ice Cream Sandwich. Over the weekend, Google started pumping out updates to GSM based Nexus S handsets that promised some sticky, sticky Ice Cream Sandwich goodness. However, some eager downloaders found that the download simply wouldn’t start installing. We are still hearing that some are able to download and install the Ice Cream Sandwich update although the majority haven’t seen ICS yet.

Nexus S owners will be prompted to download the Android Beaming Ice Cream Sandwich again when it is ready

Google issued a statement saying that it had paused the update in certain areas while they “monitor feedback.” Most of the world is still getting updated, but here in the States it looks as if we are on hold now. We still haven’t heard anything about the Sprint Nexus S 4G and its Android Ice Cream Sandwich update, but all good things come to those that wait, or they decide to grab a Galaxy Nexus because it is Christmas after all. Phil Wilcox, who is a Google community manager, promised the downloads will start up again and that your phone will offer the update again when it is really ready to be installed. Oh yes, and that shot in the intro graphic is of one of our Nexus S 4Gs. That’s a skin for your viewing pleasure and not the real Ice Cream Sandwich, but it isn’t all bad for us look at the temperature.

Let us know if you have had any luck getting Ice Cream Sandwich down on your Nexus S. Also, let us know if you can encode NFC tags okay because we want to know whether Google has fixed that little bug.