IMPORTANT UPDATE - RISK OF HARD BRICK WITH ICS UPGRADE:
So, last night I updated to the new official ICS release firmware from Samsung. I was coming from the leaked ICS repack, so it was a riskier and more difficult proposition than it might be for people who are still on Gingerbread. I managed it in the end, but not without some tribulation in the form of bootloops at a couple of junctures in the two-part flash.
I was just starting to think about getting down to writing my guide for you all when I was alerted to
this thread at XDA (via Chainfire on Twitter). The thread is a dire warning about a bug in the firmware that can result in a hard brick. If you're not familiar a hard brick means your phone is dead without chance of recovery. Dead. Without. Chance. Of. Recovery.
The thing is that the bug is unpredictable, and short of abstaining from flash there is no way to protect yourself from it. This seems to apply mostly to unofficial methods of installing ICS and the use of CWM recovery, but there are ominous and thus far unsubstantiated reports of hard bricks with the official update too. For that reason I will not be producing a guide for flashing to the ROM at this time, and will also be removing my instructions for flashing to the Chinese repack once I'm done with this post. Naturally once the issue is resolved you can expect a guide for safely flashing up to ICS here at AndroidNZ, but for the meantime I can only recommend that you remain on Gingerbread until it rolls out to you officially. Sorry folks, but there it is.
