So I managed to get hold of a Motorola Droid 2 Global EXTRA SUPER COWBOY FUN TIMES Edition (as I’m to understand it is called in Japan) to tool around with. I spent the last four days or do trying to put Ice Cream Sandwich on it, which requires it to be rooted and poked and prodded and violated. That was actually the fun part.

Rooting the device was easy, once I found instructions that actually worked. But, the instructions for installing Cyanogen Mod 9 (which is Ice Cream Sandwich) didn’t work at all and I got pretty frustrated. Eventually, I discovered more instructions and managed to get it installed.

So, after spending four days with Android 2.2 (Froyo? Really?) and 2.3 (Gingerbread at least sounds better) which were very similar, despite color palettes that were in direct opposition to one another, I get into Ice Cream Sandwich and immediately run into an issue that is indicative of Android’s problem as a whole.

For 2.2 and 2.3, when connecting to a wi-fi network, the “Connect” button is on the left and the “Cancel” button is on the right (which, is the opposite of Macs and iPhones and unintuitive to begin with). In ICS, they’ve decided to join the rest of the world and place the “Connect” button on the right. Of course, this makes sense everywhere else, but in four days I’ve been “trained” by the OS to look for the confirmation button on the left. So now, I click on the wrong button when trying to do… well, everything.

Anyway, it was a small thing, but I felt it was a prime example of Android’s usability issues. It may seem like Android has finally figured out the smart way to do things and they’re simply correcting a previous mistake. And that would be a reason for praise, if it weren’t for the fact that ICS is only installed on 7.1 percent of Android devices six months after it has launched.

Oh, and (of course) the color palette has changed yet again.

UPDATE: I hadn’t listened to any of the ringtones on the device before updating to ICS, so I don’t know if it’s Google’s, Motorola’s, or Cyanogen’s fault, but these ringtones are awful. Thank the Maker I’m not using this as an actual phone.