On the Korean language Samsung Tomorrow blog hosted by the conglomerate, the manufacturer of the Galaxy series of devices has confirmed that the first generation of the Galaxy S series as well as the first Galaxy Tab will not be able to updated to Android 4.0 due to the lack of onboard RAM/ROM available to fit both the operating system and its own TouchWiz software overlay without significant performance issues.
As Android 4.0 is the most memory and processor-intensive version of the operating system due to its increased requirements for rendering and applications, many manufacturers have taken a selective approach to updating smartphones and tablets, with most preferring to update second and current third generation Android devices as well as releasing future devices with Android 4.0 instead of attempting to force Android 4.0 on older devices.
Google has stated that most Android 2.3 devices will be capable of upgrading to Android 2.3. However, this statement contradicted Google’s own acknowledgement that they have no plans to update the original Nexus One, their first mobile phone, to Android 4.0. The Nexus One has a similar CPU, in terms of performance, to the Galaxy S, but the Galaxy S has arguably faster graphical performance, more in-line with the requirements of Android 4.