Owners of the Motorola Milestone will have a very big reason to celebrate as the latest Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is now available for the device, thanks to the developers in the CyanogenMod community for their continuous support in delivering brand-new updates for many Android devices. Their latest development, CyanogenMod 9, promises to be the exact replica of Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich, and more.

This update, however, is not the official update released or endorsed by Motorola but an alternative way of getting Ice Cream Sandwich on your device. This is still a beta version of the firmware, with minor bugs and glitches still present. Core features are functioning well, although the camera and accelerated video decoding still need further work.

The Motorola Milestone is an old device with prehistoric hardware (compared to the hardware of handsets these days) but still managed to stand the test of time, proving to be a worthy device capable of even the latest Android update. The Milestone has a 600 MHz Cortex-A8 processor and a 3.7-inch touchscreen display. The handy slide-out keyboard makes it appealing for business fellows looking for a physical keyboard for rapid typing and browsing.

If you’re still up to the task of updating your Motorola Milestone to Ice Cream Sandwich, check out the rest of this article.

Requirements and Warnings

This update should not be applied to phones which are currently locked to network carriers.  If you apply this update on a network-locked phone, you may damage your device.

Most of the Google Applications are installed in “/data/vendor/”, so if you’re coming from an earlier CM9 build, use “rm –r /system/*” inside recovery console before making any installation. This is to ensure that you don’t run out of space when installing in “/system “due to the previously installed Google Apps.

Before you proceed, you need the following:

• Rooted Motorola Milestone
• Download Android 4.0.3 ICS firmware for the Motorola Milestone
• Download Google Apps for the Motorola Milestone

Instructions

1. Connect your phone to your computer via USB cable then copy the downloaded ZIP files into the root of your phone's SD card.
2. Disconnect your phone from your PC.
3. Enable USB debugging in your phone by heading to “Settings > Applications > Development > USB Debugging”. Make sure that there is a check mark beside the option.
4. Turn off your phone.
5. Press and hold the “X” button, then press the Power button until your device boots into recovery.
6. Press and hold the Volume Up button and press the Camera button to get into recovery mode.
7. Once inside recovery mode, select the “Clear storage” option to clear out all the data from the previous ROM.
8. Select “Install zip from SD card” then choose the CyanogenMod 9 ZIP file that you have copied earlier. The installation will begin and may take up to 5-10 minutes for the process to finish. After the ROM is flashed, perform the same step for the Google Apps package.
9. Once completed, select “++++ Go back ++++” to return to the main menu.
10. Select “Reboot system now” to restart your device.

Congratulations! Your Motorola Milestone is now running on Android 4.0.3 Ice Cream Sandwich via CyanogenMod 9.