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Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”


For Google and Android fans around the world, today has been a big day, as Google teamed up with Samsung to announce the Galaxy Nexus and Android 4.0 “Ice Cream Sandwich”. Many new features were shown off today at the event, including the Galaxy Nexus, so we have compiled a list of everything to know from the Google event in case you missed it or were asleep.


Google announced a plethora of new features in Android 4.0, and while many improvements are visual, there are still core enhancements being made. Below we have listed some of these new features so you can quickly get an idea what Google has introduced in Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS).

  • Honeycomb-styled interface
  • New Roboto typeface used throughout the UI
  • New lockscreen featuring quick unlock to camera and notification pane access
  • Improvements to multitasking and the notification pane
  • Resizable widgets
  • Quick SMS responses when rejecting incoming calls
  • Improvements to text input, autocorrect and copy & paste
  • Real-time voice-to-text input
  • Full control over data usage, including usage notifications
  • New contacts app featuring better social integration and “Me” profile
  • More advanced Calendar and Gmail apps
  • Improved Gallery featuring a photo editor
  • Improved Camera app including panorama mode and easy sharing
  • Cloud connectivity with automatic Google Chrome bookmark sync
  • Offline access to emails (past 30 days by default) and web pages (when you save them)
  • Face unlock using facial recognition technology
  • Android Beam for NFC sharing of loads of content
  • Integrated visual voicemail and appropriate APIs
  • Integrated screenshots from hardware button combination
  • Support for high-density mobile displays such as the Galaxy Nexus’ 720p display
  • Many, many new APIs

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