The Ice cream sandwich is much tastier than ice cream. The Android 4.0 is announced by Google. Android 4.0 is the most awaited version of Android. This version will bring an end to the Android fragmentation and make it one OS to run on all devices. From Budget class android phones to high end android tablets.
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Features of Android 4.0
Android 4.0 is an OS which feels like an OS ‘designed’ for multiple devices. If offer great features to every user. It is more feature rich than any other previous android versions.
Android 4.0 has enhanced the user experience by new animations. Animations for unlocking the device (something we saw in Android tablets). Android also introduces a brand new typeface optimized for the high-resolution screens of Android tablets.
3Buttons
Android 4.0 drops a ‘soft’ button from the bazel ‘search’.So now there are only three buttons. the back button, home button and multi-tasking/recent apps button.
There is a System Bar and virtual buttons across all apps, which means that just the way your right click on PC to get access to more menu options you will now be able to do that with apps. These buttons will be dimmed for full-screen viewing.
With the new ‘multi-tasking’ button you can hop from one running app to another easily.
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Revamped Home Screen Experience
The all new home screen for folders offer a new way for users to group their apps and shortcuts logically, just by dragging one app onto another. From the All Apps launcher, users can now simply drag an app to get information about it or immediately uninstall it, or disable a pre-installed app.
On smaller-screen devices, the home screen now includes a customizable favorites tray visible from all home screens. Users can drag apps, shortcuts, folders, and other priority items in or out of the favorites tray for instant access from any home screen.
Resize Widget
Another area where Apple is far behind Android is re-sizable widgets.Android 3.0 introduced re-sizable widgets, and 4.0 is taking it a step ahead. Now users can embed live application content directly through interactive widgets. Widgets let users check email, flip through a calendar, play music, check social streams, and more — right from the home screen, without having to launch apps. Widgets are re-sizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space.
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Face It: Only You Can Unlock The Phone
Android 4.0 has added a new security feature which will not allow a thief to unlock your stolen phone. The phone will unlock the moment its front camera sees your face. Wow!
Lock Wont Lock You Out
Android 4.0 has added more flexibility. You now won’t have to unlock your phone to take a picture. You can see notifications even when the phone is locked. Of cource you will have to unlock the phone to read the mails. one more feature is that if you are listening to music you won’t have to unlock the phone if you want to manage the tracks or look at the album art.
Android 4.0 turns your phone into a ‘real’ camera and music player by removing ‘locks’ from between you and app.
The lock screens now let users do more without unlocking. From the slide lock screen, users can jump directly to the camera for a picture or pull down the notifications window to check for messages. When listening to music, users can even manage music tracks and see album art.
Voice Recognition and Voice Commands
Google has been experimenting with voice search and voice commands for a long time, The new voice input engine now offers a continuous ‘open microphone’ experience and streaming voice recognition. The new voice input engine lets users dictate the text they want, for as long as they want, using the language they want. Users can speak continuously for a prolonged time, even pausing for intervals if needed, and dictate punctuation to create correct sentences.
Android 4.0 brings a new revolution in the mobile space and the good news is — its all open source like HTML5!
- Roboto: new typeface called Roboto is here to rule the roost.
- Landscape Controls: The Galaxy Nexus opted to move the classic Android buttons onto the screen, but they smartly disappear when viewing video or in widescreen mode.
- Flexible Widgets: Ice Cream Sandwich’s stock widgets are resizable and more robust than previous versions. They also now occupy their own separate space in the app drawer.
- Folders: Dragging apps and contacts on top of each other create re-arrangeable folders a la iOS.
- Favorites Tray: Users can stow their favorite apps, links, and folders into a new Favorites tray for quick and easy access.
- Taking Screenshots: This one has been a long time coming. Hold down the power button and the volume down button to snap a screenshot.
- Notifications: Hefty revamp here, as the contents are much more customizable. Music controls have been integrated, and notifications are also easily dismissed with a quick swipe left or right.
- Improved Copy & Paste: Copying and pasting content is made much easier, as you can now move around entire blocks of text. Very useful.
- Face Unlock: One of the most ambitious is Ice Cream Sandwich’s new Face Unlock feature, which allows users to unlock their handsets just by looking into the front-facing camera.
- Enhanced Talk-to-Text: Voice input seems much smarter this time around, as it’s more accurate, requires less time, and even accounts for pauses.
- Browser: The stock browser now sports tabs, and it maxes out at 16. Web pages can now also be saved offline for later perusal, and users can directly request the desktop version of a site.
- Gmail: Gmail now supports two-line previews, and sports a new context-sensitive action bar at the bottom of the screen. Gesture support allows you to swipe left and right between emails.
- People App: A new spin on the contact list. The phone’s owner has their own profile, and people’s contact details are sourced from Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Users can define favorite contacts, and individual people can be placed on the homescreen or in folders for quick access.
- Calendar: Features a redesigned UI and includes pinch-to-zoom to vary the level of detail on a calendar page.
- Data Usage: Users can now drill down into their data usage over a certain period of time, including the ability to see which apps are the biggest data hogs and the ability to limit data usage to a certain threshold.
- Camera: There’s a lot to love here. It features image stabilization, improved autofocus, and integration with other apps for sending photos or instant upload to Google+. Oh, and who could forget built-in face detection, panorama and time lapse modes, and on-the-fly photo retouching and enhancements.
- Android Beam: An secure NFC-powered sharing platform that lets users share nearly any kind of content, save for applications (in that case, a link to the Market is sent instead)
