Owners of Samsung’s “phablet” Galaxy Note have started to see messages that the luscious Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade is available for their devices. This is not a fluke or test like we recently saw with AT&T‘s Galaxy S II, this is confirmed by Sammy as the real deal. Some users are claiming the update is coming in two forms, either as an OTA push or by hitting in “Software Update” in the phone’s system settings. However, Samsung and AT&T state the official way to get Android 4.0 is by using the much hated Samsung Kies. Sure it sucks but it’s the way it’s gotta be geeks.

Besides the speedy improvements that ICS brings to the previously running Gingerbread Note, Samsung also included a set of apps to enhance the functionality of the S-Pen. Your Note can now recognize shapes better and translate them into smooth, professional looking geometric sketches with Shape Match. Want to guess what Formula Match does? You got it, your Note will translate formulas and equations into text, look up answers via WolframAlpha.com or even help you search for the answer. One of the better features involves reading your written questions and finding the answers online. It’s alive!

There’s also a My Story App for you multimedia geeks out there who like to..well, tell your story. The app lets you create albums, e-cards, letters and the what not to express yourselves through the creative art of digital scrapbooking. Or something like that. It will be available in Samsung’s own app roundup, Samsung Apps. S Memo also got a boost to its productivity, especially in the widget. Now it’s much easier to get to the meat of the app and files can be synced to Evernote or Google Drive.

Ma-ma-more…

If you wish to dive into the oh so yummy ICS, make sure you do a backup of your important files (for safety’s sake) and then go about hooking your phone up to Kies. After that it should be a pretty straight forward affair, I haven’t had problems with in the past but some folks have. Let me know how it goes, I flashed mine awhile ago!

Related articles

• Samsung officially deploys Android 4.0 to Galaxy Note (AT&T)(androidguys.com)

  ---

• Samsung Galaxy Note for AT&T devours Ice Cream Sandwich and Premium Suite apps(engadget.com)

  ---