First-gen Snapdragon devices not getting CyanogenMod’s IceCream Sandwich

The popular CyanogenMod ROM modding scene has officially dropped support for a wide array of devices running on the dated Snapdragon S1 chipset.

This means that devices running on the Qualcomm QSD8x50, MSM7x25, MSM7x27 and MSM7x27T SoCs will not see any builds beyond Cyanogen 7.x, which is based on Gingerbread. Or in plain words, no Ice Cream Sandwich by CyanogenMod.
The more popular devices which fall into the above criteria include the Nexus One, HTC Desire, HTC EVO 4G, Samsung Galaxy Ace and the LG Optimus One.
The Cyanogen team cite a lack of media libraries, compatible with ICS, as well as the workarounds required to make Android 4.x+ work do not result in a smooth-running experience. Simply put, the hardware just isn’t there.
The full list of devices dropped is:

• Google Nexus One
• HTC Aria
• HTC Desire
• HTC Droid Eris
• HTC Droid Incredible
• HTC Evo 4G
• HTC Hero
• HTC Hero CDMA
• HTC Legend
• HTC MyTouch 3G
• HTC Wildfire
• HTC Tattoo
• Huawei IDEOS
• Huawei U8220
• LG Optimus Chic
• LG Optimus One
• LG Optimus Hub
• LG Optimus Pro
• Motorola BACKFLIP
• Motorola CLIQ
• Samsung Galaxy Ace
• Samsung Galaxy Fit
• Samsung Galaxy Mini
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X10 mini
• Sony Ericsson Xperia X10
• ZTE Blade

If you own one of the above devices, not all hope is lost, as the team promises to revisit the topic if a solution presents itself that allows the devices to pass the Android Compatibility Test Suite (CTS), when running ICS. Meanwhile, you can try many of the experimental builds floating around xda-developers.com, although the CyanogenMod team recommends against this because such builds usually fail CTS, and as such may have issues with various applications.