We were supposed to see the official unveiling of Android 4.0 on Tuesday at the CTIA event in San Diego, but Google and Samsung cancelled the announcement. A Samsung spokesperson said, “We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.” I took that to mean that the plan for the event was to launch a full frontal attack on the new iPhone 4S and Apple’s closed ecosystem, and that Samsung and Google felt like it might be in poor taste to hammer Apple so close to Steve’s death.

Whatever the case may be, Google and Samsung have now rescheduled the event for October 18 in Hong Kong, to coincide with the All Things D: AsiaD event. Technically, the event will happen on Wednesday, October 19 in Hong Kong, but that translates to 10:00PM Eastern on Tuesday night in the U.S. We’re expecting the two companies to unveil the new Nexus Prime (or Galaxy Nexus) smartphone, which will be the first device to run Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich.” This is the OS that will reunify Android after it was split earlier this year between Android 2.3 for smartphones and Android 3.0 for tablets. Ice Cream Sandwich will run on both smartphones and tablets.

Of course, TechRepublic will have all the details next week and talk about what it means for IT and business, but if you’d like a little preview, there are some leaked videos that give you a look at what to expect. The one below is the best one I’ve seen so far, although I can’t confirm how close this is to the final version of Ice Cream Sandwich. It’s likely a developer build and not the final code, but you can see some nice interface enhancements and new widgets.