No, it's not a joke, prank, or some cruel attempt to make you click things. This is for real. The first screenshots of Android Ice Cream Sandwich have been leaked to us as well as RootzWiki (who have two different screenshots featuring the launcher and app drawer we aren't showing here - so check them out). We're not going to build this up - you want the goods. Here's Ice Cream Sandwich running on a Nexus S:

What can we learn from these? Well, the big stuff is obviously all the UI changes - namely, blue: everywhere. But you can see that the notification bar has been totally revamped for the first time since Éclair.

And in the About menu, we can finally say months of "rumors" about what version of Android Ice Cream Sandwich will be have all either been clever trolls or totally unfounded speculation - because Google themselves have yet to decide what version number it is. Anyone from here on claiming to have information about a version number better be willing to furnish some screenshots, because ours clearly lacks such a number. And yes, it's very recent. We do know the build number is IRK36B.

Other Details

What else can we tell you about Ice Cream Sandwich? Our source has revealed the following:

Brand-new launcher and app drawer, with screenshots of both featured exclusively on RootzWiki - with what appears to be a task switcher icon on the homescreen, though it could be something else.

on RootzWiki - with what appears to be a task switcher icon on the homescreen, though it could be something else. Camera now has a panorama mode (not pictured)

Gmail has been totally re-themed to go with the new OS (not pictured)

Nexus S will be receiving ICS via update, but the "Nexus Prime" will be getting it first

Mostly UI changes - many older devices (< 1 year old) should be able to run it

We know this isn't a lot, but hey, it's something, and it's the first time anyone's publicly released any images of Ice Cream Sandwich - which Google has kept a very closely guarded secret since its existence was formally announced. So we'll take what we can get. Also, to the skeptics: both we and RootzWiki have the utmost confidence in our source on this one, we'd call it a "rumor" if we didn't, there's no build.prop editing going on here.