What's new in Android 4.0?

Thrax

These things are.

All Android-powered devices running Android 4.0 are required to support hardware-accelerated 2D drawing. Developers can take advantage of this to add great UI effects while maintaining optimal performance on high-resolution screens, even on phones. For example, developers can rely on accelerated scaling, rotation, and other 2D operations, as well as accelerated UI components such as TextureView and compositing modes such as filtering, blending, and opacity.

Trumandrummer

Thrax wrote:

These things are.

I LOVE it!

I love all the new features.... but I am more in love with the color scheme. For some reason it really just draws me in....

Kwitko

Gorgeous. Bloody gorgeous.

ardichoke

These updates gave me a boner. Figuratively speaking.

That said, the Galaxy Nexus wasn't quite as impressive as I hoped... I wonder if enough of these updates will make it into CM for the N1 that I won't feel the need to upgrade?

AlexDeGruven

I REALLY like the per-app data control. That's just plain smart, particularly in today's world of data caps (not that I'd know anything about that, heh).

The built-in camera features (panorama, time-lapse, instant shutter, etc) are fantastic.

The overall design is gorgeous and just plain feels right.

ICS is the Android we've been looking for since 2008 and then some.

Tushon

eagerly awaiting a CM build of this

AlexDeGruven

According to Cyanogen, won't happen until after source release. So probably won't see CM9 build until Thanksgiving at the earliest.

Tushon

And now we waittttttt

fatcat

what are the minimum specs for ICS aka Android 4.0

Thrax

Google does not specify minimum specifications, but I think it's safe to say that the reasonable cutoff might be Nexus One-era phones (Snapdragon S1+512MB of RAM or more).

UPSLynx

Oh man, that voice input dictation stuff sounds awesome. Just when everyone starts busting a nut over Siri on iOS, Android makes it obsolete.

NiGHTS

Hopefully someone can figure out how to market it as well as Apple markets...well, anything, really.

UPSLynx

"For new flexibility and convenience while shooting video, users can now take snapshots at full video resolution just by tapping the screen as video continues to record."

That is so baller.

Snarkasm

Voice dictation is not Siri. It's not making anything obsolete, it's just making it so you can take notes with your mouth instead of with your fingers. I want Android's voice actions beefed up as much as you do, but this doesn't really seem like that step - it's just better voice recognition, not better voice integration.

I'm happy about a few things - easy access to the camera like Sense 3, easier multitasking like webOS, better gesture integration throughout the platform, a better design cohesion, a unified platform across phone and tablet. This is going to be one sweet version update.

Thrax

1. WebOs-like multi-tasking.

2. Hardware-accelerated UI rendering is the default, unless the developer disables it for compatibility reasons.

3. Unified tablet/phone development platform.

4. Prevent any applications, including carrier bloatware, from using any resources. No memory footprint, no active threads, no icon in the app drawer.

5. OS-wide gesture integration.

These are my top-5 features in no particular order.

UPSLynx

Snarkasm wrote:

Voice dictation is not Siri. It's not making anything obsolete, it's just making it so you can take notes with your mouth instead of with your fingers. I want Android's voice actions beefed up as much as you do, but this doesn't really seem like that step - it's just better voice recognition, not better voice integration.

Disagree. The functionality is different than Siri, yes, but the fact that Android will detect and place proper punctuation, offer simple correction, and continually monitor and notate while the user speaks, regardless of breaks or pace, is a pretty big frigging deal. That tech is going to be awesome.

fatcat

Thrax wrote:

Google does not specify minimum specifications, but I think it's safe to say that the reasonable cutoff might be Nexus One-era phones (Snapdragon S1+512MB of RAM or more).

so...Evo4g could run it?

Thrax

Potentially. We'll just have to wait and see.

Snarkasm

UPSLynx wrote:

Disagree. The functionality is different than Siri, yes, but the fact that Android will detect and place proper punctuation, offer simple correction, and continually monitor and notate while the user speaks, regardless of breaks or pace, is a pretty big frigging deal. That tech is going to be awesome.

Sure, but that's not what Siri is, and if you don't see the difference, you haven't really been paying attention. Siri uses voice as a method of retrieving information or executing tasks: put this on my calendar, what's the weather like, set a timer for this. Voice dictation doesn't do that. The difference is integration.

Yes, real-time dictation is cool, but let's not kid ourselves that this is anything that's going to compete with Siri any more than our currently-available Voice Actions do. Siri and this update operate in completely different spheres. Your argument is like saying Cessna's new twin-prop is going to completely obliterate the market for the Boeing 777 because it has better fuel mileage.

Tushon

Snark has this one. The real-time dictation has great potential to become siri-like one day (or better, rather) but it definitely isn't there.

AlexDeGruven

Siri is 2 very large chunks of work - Accurate and language-independent speech-to-text, and natural-language processing.

ICS has the first down pretty well now at its core.

Now it's up to developers to work on the second part.