Google's Android 4.0 Operating System – Ice Cream Sandwich

On September 2008, the story of Android began with the release of Android 1.0. Android is a mobile operating system which is developed by Google. Since Android has released, it has seen multiple number of updates day by day. All the Android versions have been developed under the name of desserts (alphabetically) like Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread, Honeycomb and now Ice Cream Sandwich.

Galaxy Nexus users are lucky because Google is going to test it on Nexus. The software is out for testing and some Google engineers who are using Galaxy Nexus, are already testing it. Many companies have confirmed that they are going to support Ice Cream Sandwich in their devices. Some of these include Asus, AT&T, HTC, LG, Meizu, Motorola, Samsung, Sony Ericsson, Sprint, T-Mobile and ViewSonic.

Ice Cream Sandwich is basically a codename for Android 4.0. On May 2011, it was previewed at Google I/O event. Gabe Cohen from Google stated that Ice Cream Sandwich(ICS) was “theoretically compatible” with any Android 2.3x device in production at that time, during its release on 19 October 2011. Android Police reports that Google has already begun Android Ice Cream Sandwich testing internally.

Android 4.0 is blessed with amazingly fresh features:

• Speed and performance enhanced.
• Improvement in visual voicemail with the ability to speed up or slow down voicemail messages.
• Pinch-to-zoom functionality in the calendar.
• Virtual buttons, in place of physical buttons in the UI.
• Widgets separation in a new tab and listed in a same manner to apps.
• New drag and drop style to create folders.
• New action bar at the bottom of the Gmail app.
• Off-line search, a new action bar at the bottom of the Gmail app and 2 line preview.
• Easy switch between Gmail conversation with the left or right swipe ability.
• Feature for integrated screenshot capture.
• Better functionalities for copy and paste.
• Improved error correction on the keyboard.
• Real-time speech to text dictation.
• Face Unlock, this feature allows user to unlock handset through facial recognition software.
• Modern Roboto font, which is a modern, approachable and emotional font.
• Built-in photo editor, a user friendly photo editing tool.
• Apps shut down ability.(Ability to close) Apps that are using data in the background)
• New gallery layout, the layout organized by person and location.
• Refreshed 'People' app with social network integration, status updates and hi-res images.
• Hardware acceleration of the UI.
• Resizeable widgets – already part of Android 3.1 for tablets, but new for cellphones.
• 1080p video recording for stock Android devices.
• Wi-Fi direct, allows user to talk to each other without wireless access point.
• Directly apps access from locked screen.
• Automatic syncing of browser with users' Chrome bookmarks.

Google's Android is an eminent operating system and through Ice Cream Sandwich it has fully revamped Android this year. ICS, the mobile operating system is quite close to iOS. Google is trying to provide an intuitive and uniform experience to the Android user with the help of ICS.