Android Ice Cream Sandwich shown off in eBay video

Ice Cream Sandwich, the next version of the Android operating system, has apparently been revealed in a video, after someone who bought a Google Nexus S on eBay found themselves with a phone running an early version of the upcoming update.

In a two-minute video acquired by Engadget, you can get a glimpse at how Ice Cream Sandwich handles the Android camera, app menus, widgets and a slightly revised homescreen.

Google Apps

We were paying particular attention to the Google Apps icon on the homescreen, which -- when tapped -- reveals a box full of all Google's services, from Google+ to Gmail, Maps and YouTube. There are four shortcut buttons along the bottom, as opposed to the the two you get with Gingerbread.

Ice Cream Sandwich is supposed to be the update that unifies the phone (Gingerbread) and tablet (Honeycomb) versions of Android, tying the whole lot together in one big happy operating system. It's expected to be officially unwrapped on 11 October, at a conference where Samsung and Google are tipped to unveil the Google Nexus Prime, the first mobile running the chilly new version of Android.

As such, some of the blue-tinged menus from Honeycomb make an appearance, and we notice that holding down the home button brings up a tiled multi-tasking menu lifted straight from the tablet version of Android.

Those hoping for a radical Android overhaul will be disappointed. If it's real, this is still very much the same 'droid aesthetic, with no hint that Google is trying to tinker too much with the look and feel of its operating system. We think Android is a bit too geeky to appeal to the average bod, for tablets in particular, so we were hoping for a slightly simpler interface this time around.

Is it fake?

As Android site Androidandme has pointed out, anyone with a custom ROM and launcher (as well as a good deal of spare time), could have faked this video, but a bustle of forum activity over on XDA developers suggests the clip could be genuine, with claims that Google has remotely wiped the phone.

The video appears to match the leaked Ice Cream Sandwich shots we spied back in August, at least in terms of the blue tint, though there's no sign of the app-switching button in the bottom-right of those photos. These are probably all early builds though, so anything is subject to change.

We can't know whether this video is real or fake right now, but we'll let you know if we see any solid proof one way or another. In the meantime, check out the video below, and tell us what you'd like to see in the next version of Android, in the comments section or on our Facebook wall.

• Read our Ice Cream Sandwich complete guide.