The Motorola Droid 4 is definitely getting some attention from the developers, especially with  another recently released ICS-based ROM for the device. This time it’s an AOKP (Android Open Kang Project) ROM, which is also an AOSP-based ROM.

If you have tried other ICS-based custom ROMs for this device, you ought to check this out and experience more customization options (said to be better than other ICS-based ROMs for this device), as well as greater speed and performance.

This ROM was developed by XDA Developers member Hashcode, who ported the AOKP ROM to the Droid 4. In terms of development status, the ROM is still in beta stage, which means that there are still things to work on. This also means that there will be some bugs and issues, but hopefully the developer can roll out the fixes very soon.

So far, the developers have identified only a few known issues (there could be more). First is Bluetooth, which appears to be on but is not really connected, and at the same time, when you turn Bluetooth on, you lose your audio. Other things that are not working are the Better Camera function (includes Face Detect,  front-facing camera, and etc.) and the hardware video codecs.

Requirements

To be able to install the AOKP ROM on your Motorola Droid 4 XT894, comply with the following requirements:

• Your Motorola Droid 4 XT894 should have Safestrap Recovery installed. (Check out our guide for rooting the Motorola Droid 4, as well as our guide for installing Safestrap Recovery on the Droid 4.)
• Make a back up  of all the important data on your device such as contacts, call logs, files, SMS and Internet settings.
• Charge your battery to at least 50%.
• Download AOKP ROM for your Droid 4 from here.
• Download GApps (Google Apps package) from here.

Instructions

NOTE: Use this guide at your own risk. We will not be held liable for any damage on your device as a result of following this guide.

If you are ready to install this ROM, here are the instructions:

1. Copy the two ZIP files into the root of the phone’s external SD card.
2. Turn off your phone.
3. Power on the phone.  As soon as you see the splash screen, press the Menu button several times.  This will boot the phone in recovery mode.  While in recovery mode, use the Volume keys for navigation and the Power key for selecting.
4. Create a Nandroid back up of your existing ROM through Backup and Restore >  Backup.
5. Wipe your phone data, as follows:
   1. Select wipe data/factory reset and confirm the factory reset.
   2. Select wipe cache and confirm the cache wipe.
   3. Go to main menu, select advanced > Wipe Dalvik Cache and confirm wipe of Dalvik cache.
6. Return to main recovery menu.
7. Select install zip from  SD card, then select style=”font-style: italic;”>choose zip from SD card and choose the AOKP ROM file that you copied to the phone earlier.  Confirm that you want to flash the file.
8. Flash the GApps package as in the previous step.
9. Select Go back then select style=”font-style: italic;”>Reboot system now.
10. First time you reboot into the new ROM, you will need to set up your Google account.  If your previous ROM was based on Gingerbread,style=”text-decoration: underline; font-weight: bold;”>do notcheck the option to restore your apps and settings.

Congratulations!  You’ve successfully upgraded your Motorola Droid 4 XT894 to Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich, courtesy of the AOKP ROM for the Motorola Droid 4.