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Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich"

Version of the Android operating system
Android 4.0 home screen
Developer	Google
Released to manufacturing	October 19, 2011; 13 years ago (2011-10-19)
Latest release	4.0.4 / March 28, 2012; 12 years ago (2012-03-28)
Preceded by	Android 2.3.x "Gingerbread"
Succeeded by	Android 4.1 "Jelly Bean"
Official website	Official website

Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" is a version of the Android mobile operating system developed by Google. Unveiled on October 19, 2011, Android 4.0 builds upon the significant design changes made by the tablet-only release Android 3.0 "Honeycomb", in an effort to create a unified platform for both smartphones and tablets, whilst simplifying and modernizing the overall Android experience around a new set of [[human interface guidelines. Android 4.0 also introduced a number of new and significant features,

Development

Following the tablet-only release "Honeycomb", it was announced at Google I/O 2011 that the next version of Android, codenamed "Ice Cream Sandwich" (ICS), would emphasize providing a unified user experience between both smartphones and tablets. In June 2011, details also began to surface surrounding a new Nexus phone by Samsung to accompany ICS, which would notably exclude hardware navigation keys. Android blog RootzWiki released photos in August 2011 showing a Nexus S running a build of ICS, depicting a new application menu layout resembling that of Honeycomb, and a new interface with blue-colored accenting. An official launch event for Android 4.0 and the new Nexus phone was originally scheduled for October 11, 2011 at a CTIA trade show in San Diego. However, out of respect for the death of Apple co-founder Steve Jobs, Google and Samsung postponed the event to October 19, 2011 in Hong Kong. Android 4.0 and its launch device, the Galaxy Nexus, were officially unveiled on October 19, 2011. Andy Rubin explained that 4.0 was intended to provide a "enticing and intuitive" user experience across both smartphones and tablets.

Matias Duarte, Google's vice president of design, explained that development of Ice Cream Sandwich was based around the question "What is the soul of the new machine?"; user studies concluded that the existing Android interface was too complicated, and thus prevented users from being "empowered" by their devices. The overall visual appearance of Android was streamlined for Ice Cream Sandwich, building upon the changes made on the tablet-oriented Android 3.0, his first project at Google; Duarte admitted that his team had cut back support for smaller screens on Honeycomb to prioritize sufficient tablet support, as he wanted Android OEMs to "stop doing silly things like taking a phone UI and stretching it out to a 10-inch tablet." Judging Android's major competitors, Duarte felt that the interface of iOS was too skeuomorphic and kitschy, Windows Phone looked too much like "airport lavatory signage", and that both operating systems tried too hard to enforce conformity, " leaving any room for the content to express itself." For Ice Cream Sandwich, his team aimed to provide interface design guidelines which would evoke a modern appearance, while still allowing flexibility for application developers. He characterized the revised look of Ice Cream Sandwich as having "toned down the geeky nerd quotient" in comparison to Honeycomb, which carried a more futuristic appearance that was compared by critics to the aesthetics of Tron.

In January 2012, following the official launch of Ice Cream Sandwich, Duarte and Google launched an Android Design portal, which features human interface guidelines, best practices, and other resources for developers building Android apps designed for Ice Cream Sandwich.

Release

The Galaxy Nexus was the first Android device to ship with Android 4.0. Two minor revisions of 4.0 were released; 4.0.3 was released on December 16, 2011, providing bug fixes, a new social stream API, and other internal improvements. The same day, Google began a rollout of Ice Cream Sandwich to the device's predecessor, the Nexus S, although on December 20, 2011, the roll-out was "paused" so the company could "monitor feedback" related to the update.

On March 29, 2012, Android 4.0.4 was released, promising performance improvements to the camera and screen rotation, and other bug fixes.March 29, 2012

Features

Visual design

The user interface of Android 4.0 represents an evolution of the design introduced by Honeycomb, although the futuristic aesthetics of Honeycomb were scaled back in favor of a flatter and cleaner feel with neon blue accenting. Ice Cream Sandwich also introduces a new default system font, Roboto; designed in-house to replace the Droid font family, Roboto is primarily optimized for use on high-resolution mobile displays. The new appearance is implemented by a widget toolkit known as "Holo"; to ensure access to the Holo style across all devices—even if they use a customized interface skin elsewhere, all Android devices certified to ship with Google Play Store (formerly Android Market) must provide the capability for apps to use the unmodified Holo theme.

As with Honeycomb, devices can render navigation buttons—"Back", "Home", and "Recent apps"—on a "system bar" across the bottom of the screen, removing the need for physical equivalents. As with Honeycomb, Android 4.0 deprecates the "Menu" button that was present on previous generations of Android devices, in favor of presenting buttons for actions within apps on "action bars", and menu items which do not fit on the bar in "action overflow" menus, designated by three vertical dots. Hardware "Search" buttons are also deprecated, in favor of search buttons within action bars. On devices without a "Menu" key, a temporary "Menu" key is displayed on-screen while running apps that do not use the new navigation scheme. On devices that use a hardware "Menu" key, action overflow buttons are hidden in apps and are mapped to the "Menu" key.

User experience

The default home screen of Ice Cream Sandwich displays a persistent Google Search bar across the top of the screen, and a dock across the bottom containing the app drawer button in the middle, and four slots for app shortcuts alongside it. Folders of apps can be formed by dragging an app and hovering it over another. The app drawer is split into two tabs; one for apps, and the latter holding widgets to be placed on home screen pages. Widgets themselves can now be resized and contain scrolling content. Android 4.0 contains an increased use of swiping gestures; apps and notifications can now be removed from the recent apps menu and dismissed from the notifications area by sliding them away, and a number of stock and Google apps now use a new form of tabs, in which users can navigate between different panes by either tapping their name on a strip, or swiping left and right.

The phone app was updated with the addition of visual voicemail support on the call log, and the ability to send canned text message responses in response to incoming calls. The web browser app incorporates updated versions of WebKit and V8, supports syncing with Google Chrome, and incorporates an override mode for loading a desktop-oriented version of a website rather than a mobile-oriented version, along with offline browsing. The "Contacts" section of the phone app was split off into a new "People" app, which also offers integration with social networks such as Google+ to display recent posts and synchronize contacts, and a "Me" profile for the device's user. The camera app was also redesigned, adding a new panorama mode and the ability to take still photos from a video being recorded in camcorder mode. The photo gallery app also contains basic photo editing tools. The lock screen now supports face recognition unlock, includes a shortcut for launching the camera app, and can house playback controls for music players. The keyboard incorporates improved autocomplete algorithms, and improvements to voice input allow for continuous dictation.

For devices supporting near-field communication (NFC), Android 4.0 also introduces "Android Beam"—a function which allows users to share links to content from compatible apps by holding the back of their device up against the back of another NFC-equipped Android phone, and tapping the screen when prompted. Certain "System" apps (particularly those pre-loaded by carriers) that cannot be uninstalled can now be disabled—hiding them from the app drawer. Android 4.0 also introduces controls for managing network bandwidth usage over mobile networks, with a particular emphasis for those on metered data plans; users can display the total amount of data they have used over a period of time, and display data usage per-app. Background data usage can be disabled globally or on a per-app basis, and a cap can be set to automatically disable data if usage reaches a certain level.

Platform

Android 4.0 inherits platform additions from Honeycomb, and also adds support for ambient temperature and humidity sensors,Bluetooth Health Device Profile, near-field communication (NFC), and Wi-Fi Direct. The operating system also provides improved support for stylus and mouse input, along with new accessibility, calendar, keychain, spell checking, social networking, and virtual private network APIs. For multimedia support, Android 4.0 also adds support for ADTS AAC, Matroska containers for Vorbis and VP8, WebP, streaming of VP8, OpenMAX AL, and HTTP Live Streaming 3.0.

Reception

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See also

• Android version history

References

1. https://plus.google.com/u/0/+android/posts/NgGwavbmkQ7
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14. "Google requiring default 'Holo' theme in Android 4.0 devices for Android Market access". The Verge. Retrieved 25 July 2014.
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• Android (operating system)