ics - 24/26 - Android Police - Android News, Apps, Games, Phones, Tablets

Oct

Want To Build Ice Cream Sandwich From AOSP? Bring Out The Heavy Artillery - This Is What It Will Take

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Development, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

As we know, the source code for Android 4.0 "Ice Cream Sandwich" is going to be published fairly soon, which means developers of all trades will be able to download, modify, and compile it into ROMs. A few great examples of this are handset manufacturers (SE, Motorola, HTC, etc) working on incorporating ICS into new and existing devices as well as CyanogenMod developers merging the source with all the awesome modifications they've added into CM so far.

Have you ever wondered what it takes these people to build the Android source? I never really gave it too much thought, but whoa - never in a million years did I think that building ICS would take these kinds of resources (according to JBQ, a Google developer working on Android):

ICS will be a much larger release than any previous Android release.

Oct

3 Years Of Android: A Look At Android's Home Screens - From Cupcake To Ice Cream Sandwich

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Cupcake 1.5, Donut 1.6, Eclair 2.1, Froyo 2.2, Gingerbread 2.3, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Jelly Bean 4.1

Oh, Android. How far you've come since the days of the G1. Actually, tomorrow, October 22nd, will mark 3 years to the day that Android has been available on consumer handsets in the United States, and the G1 on T-Mobile was concepción.

With Ice Cream Sandwich finally revealed, Android has gone through its seventh major iteration. How has Android changed? What better way to illustrate Android's evolution than its home screen, the hub of user interaction. Here's a look at the face of Android over the last 3 years.

Android 1.5: Cupcake

Android Version 1.5: Cupcake

Cupcake was step one for what was, at the time, Google's recently acquired mobile operating system Android.

Oct

[Updated] ASUS: Ice Cream Sandwich On Existing Tablets Before Year's End, Transformer Prime Info, Padfone in Q1 2012

Posted by David Ruddock in ASUS, Eee Pad Slider, Eee Pad Transformer, Eee Pad Transformer Prime, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News, Padfone

ASUS has been hard at work on the successor to the company's first foray into the Android tablet market, the ASUS Transformer.

Transformer Prime

The Transformer's ~~yet-to-be-officially-named sequel~~ (Update: The name turned out to be... Transformer Prime) was shown off today by ASUS chairman Johnny Shih - and boy, is this thing thin. ASUS's next Android tablet will be a mere 8.3mm in profile and stick with the 10.1-inch screen form factor. Of course, it will have the detachable plug-in keyboard that made the Transformer a unique product in the marketplace. It will also have a next-generation NVIDIA quad-core "Kal-El" Tegra 3 processor, as had been expected.

Oct

Samsung Decides Galaxy Nexus Was Not Actually Designed To Avoid Apple Patents, "Doesn't Know" How That Rumor Got Started, Nothing To See Here

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Galaxy Nexus, Legal, News, Samsung

Uh-oh. Sounds like Samsung's lawyers heard about Samsung Mobile President Shin Jong-kyun's little statement that the Galaxy Nexus was designed such that no "known" Apple patents were used or infringed on by the phone. This was probably, to be frank, a very stupid thing to say. Aside from basically challenging Apple to take a closer look at the Galaxy Nexus, there's also the fact that, if Jong-kyun's statement was actually correct and Samsung did design the Galaxy Nexus to avoid Apple patents, that Apple's lawyers would love to quote it at various patent infringement trials around the world.

This could be introduced to a jury as evidence that Samsung had reason to believe, at the point the Galaxy Nexus was designed, that their other products could be infringing on Apple patents.

Oct

Ice Cream Sandwich Feature Closer Look - The Dialer And People App: Yep, It's Still A Phone

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

While we use our devices for everything from watching movies to browsing the net and checking social networks, let's not overlook the fact that, at their core, they're still called smartphones. As such, the dialer and contact app -- now called People -- in Ice Cream Sandwich have both received a major overhaul.

The People is, of course, based on the current Contacts app, but it has been totally redesigned to be more intuitive, easier to use, and provide all the information about your contacts in one centralized location. The main screen offers the typical list of contacts, but instead of being tabbed like the current version, it's swipe-able (like most things in ICS).

Oct

Ice Cream Sandwich Feature Closer Look - Data Usage Shows You Which Apps Are Munching All Your Bandwidth

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

Let's face it -- no one likes tiered data plans. Still, it is something that most of us have to deal with, and I've never met anyone who wants to suffer the result of going over their allotted bandwidth. Fortunately, Google is offering a nice, proactive solution (not to be confused with the face cream that gets rid of acne, that's something else entirely) to help users avoid connection speed slowdowns or, even worse, surprise overage fees.

The band-aid for this menacing problem is a built-in data monitor, which is designed to provide crucial information about which apps are using your bandwidth and how much you have left, as well as warn you or disable all mobile data when you hit a user-definable limit.

Oct

Ice Cream Sandwich Feature Closer Look - The New Calendar App Lets You Cram Your Day More Full Than Ever Before

Posted by Cameron Summerson in Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

We've already looked at a veritable buttload (yes, that's an official unit of measurement) of features from ICS, but we're not finished yet. Next on the list of things that Google made better in Android 4.0 is an app that nearly everyone is familiar with: the Calendar.

Don't get me wrong, the existing Calendar app works pretty well -- it covers all the basics. You can schedule and view appointments, check out an overview of your week or month... pretty much all the things that you expect your calendar to do for you. However, if you use the Calendar often (and you're busy enough to fill it up), then you may have noticed one of the downsides of Calendar: it's not very easy to read when you have a full day planned.

Oct

Get The New ICS Font Roboto On Your Android Device Right Now

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Applications, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, Tips & Tutorials

Today's Ice Cream Sandwich announcement yielded a number of exciting enhancements, but not quite as distinctive as the new font Roboto. Indeed during the keynote, the presenter spent an inordinate amount of time expounding the virtues of this font. Roboto is a sans-serif font with characters that have a pleasing roundness, and are spaced evenly, making e-mails, clocks, and menus easy on the eyes, and, in the words of one presenter, "a pleasure to read".

Unfortunately, as the font comes with the new OS, the majority of Android users will not be able to experience Roboto until their devices are upgraded to Android 4.0.

Oct

CyanogenMod Team: There Will Be No Official SDK Port Of Ice Cream Sandwich By The CM Team - CM9 Will Arrive When The ICS Source Does

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News

At the end of today's Ice Cream Sandwich unveiling, we found out that the ICS SDK (API 14) was available immediately, but a much more important bit - the source code - was not mentioned at all. It didn't really come as a surprise - historically the source was released about a month after the SDK (with the exception of Honeycomb), but I'd like to clarify something right away for those confused between the SDK and the source code.

The SDK (software development kit), which includes the Android emulator, does not contain any source code whatsoever, which means any ROMs built from source, like CyanogenMod, will be waiting for said source to be released before we see any ICS releases.

Oct

First Official Galaxy Nexus / Ice Cream Sandwich Promo Video With Feature Highlights Galore Goes Live

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Galaxy Nexus, Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0, News, Samsung, Videos

Anticipating the fact that some folks prefer information presented to them visually, Google just dropped the first official promo video for the new Galaxy Nexus, powered by Ice Cream Sandwich. Tron-style racing and a rundown of new ICS features are practically begging you to click that Play button below: