Review of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich: Interface and Control. Part I
Google hurried to release first Android tablets so they came up with Android 3.x which was designed for devices with high resolution screens. Before that Android tablets had to do with the smartphone version never meant to be used on tablets. Amazingly, Android 2.x was still used in tablets even after the 3.x release because some manufacturers did not receive the specs on time and some just preferred the old one. From this point there was two Android families Google wanted to unify. Android 4.0 will be the common platform for smartphones and tablets with the same interface (except for some extra features on tablets). For some time there will be a number of Android versions on the market (2.x, 3.x, 4.x) for in a while tablets will migrate to 4.x completely. Old and budget smartphones will still come with the 2.x version while the new 2012 smartphones will have 4.x on board.The main objective of Android 4.0 was to unify the UI, separate interface elements and provide similar user experience on different devices. Before i got really familiar with this system I had a feeling this would mean a basic comb over to make stuff look identical. But having tried out many apps on Android 4.0 and previous Androids I can say that the new OS provides a much richer and easier user experience and it really does well in different usage scenarios for smartphones and tablets. Now I want to review the new UI features of Android 4.0 that was announced on October 17 2011 in Hong Kong on a Samsung event. Also the first smartphone running on this OS was presented – Galaxy Nexus (we used one for this review).
Android 4.0 – A Close-Up On The UI
When working on Android 4.0 Google wanted to get rid of all hard buttons but HTC and Samsung insisted on support for hard buttons as great many phones have already been released with a number of hard buttons that would not be able to upgrade to Ice Cream Sandwich which would be a blow to Android’s reputation so Google yielded and 4.x supports both soft and hard buttons (buttons are not doubled on the screen in case the particular device has hard equivalents except for some context buttons in a number of menus).There are three compulsory buttons: Back, Home and Active Applications. The Back button cancels an action or returns you one directory up. The Home button gets you back on the Home screen. In some apps active buttons can be dimmed out to give more work space.
Unlike older Android versions widgets are now resizable – when you select a widget you see a resize frame. This is a very cool feature – you can make mail and social networking widgets suit your needs.
Android 4.0 features a new system of spell check – the system suggests up to three variants for words it thinks were misspelled. You can add words to the dictionary and add whole dictionaries for the spell check feature.
Multitasking works magic and like in HoneyComb active apps are displayed as icons (their number is only limited to the system memory). You can swipe an icon aside to close an app.
Further Reading:
Accessibility
On the first start-up you cans select the maximum available font size for visually impaired users. The OS also has the Talkback feature that can voice all events, read messages and tell you where you are. It is a really great feature and a big advantage as compared to other platforms.Bottom Line
The release of Android 4.0 has surely given headaches to its competitors. Microsoft’s WP7 is now falling tremendously far behind it – it does not have desktops, or widgets, or folders, or a proper notification system. And this is only a short list of what Windows Phone 7 does not have. I think iOS5 is playing on the same level as Android 4.0 (there strong sides in both platforms). I also think that these two are the only modern mobile platforms as of today and they compete only against each other. Only they have modern, fully customizable UIs.In my opinion, Google has succeeded with their main objective i.e. to create a unified Android with a modern, sleek and user friendly interface. The animation is very nice and really improves everyday user experience (it is not superfluous or irritating). The new Android is also pretty fast as you can see on the video (it is faster than Android 2.x on Galaxy S2 which has more powerful hardware).
In the next part we will talk about the bundled apps and their features, also Google’s cloud services and other features of the new OS.
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