LG has historically been one of the worst offenders in terms of Android updates for compatible smartphone hardware in the past 18-24 months, typically refusing to update smartphones past arbitrary versions in order to sell new hardware. Key to this trend is its abandonment of its first high-end Android smartphone in the LG Optimus 2X as well as its variant in the T-Mobile LG G2X after being updated to Android Gingerbread last year.
Both phones were known for being one of the first commercially available Android smartphones on the market with a dual-core processor at the time of its release in 2010, being powered by the first generation Nvidia Tegra SoC and released with Android 2.2 FroYo before being updated to Android Gingerbread within the last year. With the update to Gingerbread, many were also expecting another update to Ice Cream Sandwich and all signs pointed to an update within 2011.
However, during the time when LG was expected to announce such an update, the company suddenly pulled plans to develop any Ice Cream Sandwich updates for any version of the Optimus 2X outside of Korea and refused to acknowledge that such updates were even planned, only stating that the device could not handle Ice Cream Sandwich, leaving many owners understandably frustrated.
Now, LG has decided to keep to its commitment as defined by the GPL and has released the ICS source to its Optimus 2X update previously rolled out in Korea. With the source now available, the more dedicated Android modders will theoretically be able to offer ROMs based on the source for those owners that still own the Optimus 2X and want the long-promised ICS update that was ultimately denied by LG itself. While the ICS source is expected to lead to ICS-based ROMs, it is very unlikely that Jelly Bean ROMs will be made available as the age of the device makes it difficult to justify further development compared to current hardware.
