Ice Cream Sandwich for Samsung Galaxy S II Coming in Early 2012

Samsung on Tuesday provided more details about its rollout plans for the latest Android 4.0 operating system, dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich.

Starting in the first quarter of 2012, Samsung plans to update the Galaxy S II and Galaxy Note to the new mobile OS. After that, the Galaxy R, Galaxy Tab 10.1, Galaxy Tab 8.9, Galaxy Tab 7.7, and Galaxy Tab 7.0 Plus will follow suit, the company said in a blog post.

Samsung confirmed last month that the Galaxy S II would receive ICS, but had not yet provided a timetable.

"For upgradable models, Samsung will make separate announcements on details of OS updates schedule for each market according to market situation and carriers' requirements," Samsung wrote.

Samsung's Galaxy Nexus smartphone was the first device to be released with Ice Cream Sandwich. It made its debut on Verizon Wireless here in the U.S. on Dec. 15; for more, see PCMag's full review.

On Friday, meanwhile, Google announced that it will roll out Ice Cream Sandwich to the GSM/UMTS versions of the Nexus S over the next month.

It's been more difficult to nail down exact ICS release dates for other handsets, however.

Earlier this month, Motorola said in a blog post that it was "currently assessing this source code, and over the next month we will be determining which devices will get the upgrade and when."

In late November, LG said ICS will initially be available for the Optimus 2X, the Optimus Black, the Optimus 3D and the Optimus LTE, but did not provide details on when that might happen.

PCMag's Jamie Lendino, meanwhile, talked to several handset manufacturers about their ICS rollout plans, prompting him to declare that Google's Android Update Alliance Is Already Dead.

For more, see PCMag's full review of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich and the slideshow below.