23
Jan
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It has been two weeks since Android 4.0.3 started rolling out to the Transformer Prime, which made it the first tablet to officially receive the update. With a new version of Android, be it incremental or not, comes new and improved GApps, most of which we've already taken a close look at.

In Android 4.0.3, however, a new Gmail feature has been uncovered by ComputerWorld that is noticeably missing in its 4.0.2 brother: experiments. Sounds dangerous, no?

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As you can see, these "experiments" is really just a couple of useful options that someone at Google probably deemed "worth including, but not entirely stable."

The first option, Enter full text search, is pretty self explanatory - it indexes full messages, which allows you to search through all of the text for keywords; a useful feature indeed.

18
Jan
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Since launch, the ASUS Transformer Prime's GPS issues have hampered an otherwise stellar tablet. To make matters worse, ASUS confirmed that the problem was due to the Prime's all-aluminium construction, indicating that a software fix was unlikely. Indeed ASUS was forced to release a new version of the Prime (TF700T), with an updated back panel to improve the GPS functionality. However, ASUS has not given up all hope on the original Prime as a new OTA update (V9.4.2.7) is rolling out, which could fix the GPS drivers.

The OTA update has not gone live for everyone and in some cases it fails during installation.

18
Jan
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A few days ago, Motorola pushed out a special soak test of the ICS update to a number of Wi-Fi XOOM owners in the U.S. Apparently, no serious issues were found by the company's engineers, as the very same Android 4.0.3 update (IML77) is now rolling out to everyone. Well, everyone in the U.S. with a Wi-Fi XOOM that is. This makes the XOOM the 2nd mainstream tablet device to officially receive ICS, losing out only to the Transformer Prime that beat it to the punch by only a couple of days.

Head over to Settings > About > System Updates to see if the 81.9MB update is available on your XOOM, let it do its thing, and enjoy the greatest version of Android Google has ever created.

16
Jan
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All-around awesome guy Andrew Neal has released the result of his project in recent months: a new music app that will be coming soon to CyanogenMod 9. The good news is that you can download it now, before it's merged, and install it on your device. The (pretty major) bad news: it's only available for phones running Ice Cream Sandwich. So unless you've got a Galaxy Nexus, ICS-running Nexus S, or any phone rocking CM9, you're pretty much S.O.L. on this beauty.

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What's so great about the new music app? In a nutshell: custom themes (and even the default theme is much more of a head-turner than the stock Android music app), gesture/motion controls, custom notifications, custom lockscreens, and more widgets.

16
Jan
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When a sexy new interface or theme hits the scene, it's quite common for users to port the look to other forms of technology. We've seen Windows desktops customized to look like Android, Linux desktops made to look like Windows, Android phones that replicate iOS, and every variation in between.

Today, we're going to take a look at a new theme for the GNOME 3 shell in Linux, simply called Ice Cream Shell. As you may have guessed by its name, Ice Cream Shell will give your Linux desktop a very polished ICS look. The shell was created for Ubuntu, but it should work on any version of Linux as long as it's running GNOME 3.

13
Jan
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Well, it's official - the "project" Xoom owners have been waiting for is an update to Ice Cream Sandwich, meant as a soak test, expected to last through the weekend. Moto has begun pushing the new software as of 9pm PST. An anonymous tipster has provided us with shots of a private section of Motorola's official XOOM support forum, which confirm that the update is going live to those lucky enough to join the test group.

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As you can see, Moto has indicated that they do in fact plan on releasing this software very soon, unless "there is some extremely serious issue."

While Xoom Wi-Fi owners lucky enough to participate in Motorola's project test out Ice Cream Sandwich for the tablet that launched Honeycomb, other users can look forward to an update to Android's latest and greatest iteration any time now.

12
Jan
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Hey Devs! You've got work to do.

Google is finally showing developers what an Android app should look like. Android Design is Google's freshly launched style guide for Ice Cream Sandwich. It outlines everything developers should do to make a high quality app that "fits in" with the rest of ICS.

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Most of the big stuff is covered: Icons, color swatches, grid layouts, writing style, touch feedback - it's beautiful. Apps are normally all over the place, it will be really nice to see some consistency.

These are just guidelines, they won't be made mandatory in any way. So developers, I know this guide is insanely late, but please follow this.

11
Jan
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ASUS isn't the only one upgrading their tablets to Ice Cream Sandwich in the beginning of February - we were running around the South Hall at CES 2012 and ran into Archos, which, among other things, manufactures a whole series of G9 tablets (various combinations of 101 and 80).

Guess what - all of the G9 tablets are scheduled to receive ICS starting the first week of February (they did let everyone know it would happen "in the near future" a few days ago, but we were able to get the most up-to-date timeline today). If you happen to buy a unit before the end of February, chances are it'll still have Honeycomb on it (which you can then update immediately), but pre-updated G9s should trickle into the retail channels within a few weeks after the ICS release goes live.

11
Jan
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Owners of the original ASUS Transformer (TF101) were ecstatic last week when ASUS promised the Ice Cream Sandwich update to roll out shortly after the one for the Prime, meaning any day after January 12th was fair game. Considering ICS for the Prime went out early, and shortly after ASUS Singapore posted this

ASUS Singapore Hi Gabriele Gab, are you referring to TF101? If so, it will be getting the update as well tomorrow. Thanks.

and then retracted it, we reached out to our ASUS U.S. rep to get everyone's stories straight.

[Correction] Dear all members, please kindly note that we have just received information from HQ that for TF101 update to ICS, as all has to be approved by Google, thus estimated availability to update to ICS will be around end of this month. Apologies for the error earlier. Thanks for your kind understanding.

Here's the current timeline relayed to us directly by ASUS: the ICS update for the original Transformer TF101 will be released by early February (and not late January, as ASUS SG is suggesting, although the difference is so small that either one of these projections could end up being correct).

10
Jan
TP-ICS

Yesterday, Nvidia's CEO announced that the Ice Cream Sandwich (that's Android 4.0 for those of you new to the game) update for the quad-core Asus Transformer Prime would begin rolling out immediately. Sure enough, users started receiving the update, and we managed to snag and host the OTA ourselves (as well as help you prevent it from breaking root). For most, the update brought everything you'd expect from the hot new version of Android: even smoother, snappier performance, sleeker transitions, and various other perks. But for some, it appears that the update has seriously screwed up their device.

According to a six-page thread over at XDA, there are a number of users (though likely a very, very small percentage) who are having some pretty serious issues after updating, regardless of whether or not they were rooted beforehand.