Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Feature Highlights

Google has unveiled the long-awaited Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS for mobile the new Nexus Prime smartphone at a joint Samsung Google Event in Hong Kong Wednesday morning.

The Galaxy Nexus and Ice Cream Sandwich will be coming shortly, but here’s a quick rundown of what Android 4.0 will be bringing to the table come November.

Landscape Controls: We knew that the Galaxy Nexus opted to move the classic Android buttons onto the screen, but they smartly disappear when viewing video or in widescreen mode.

Flexible Widgets: Ice Cream Sandwich’s stock widgets are resizable and more robust than previous versions. They also now occupy their own separate space in the app drawer.

Jump to the camera or see notifications without unlocking.

The Recent Apps list makes multitasking simple.

Enhanced Talk-to-Text: Voice input seems much smarter this time around, as it’s more accurate, requires less time, and even accounts for pauses.

Face Unlock: One of the most ambitious is Ice Cream Sandwich’s new Face Unlock feature, which allows users to unlock their handsets just by looking into the front-facing camera.

A spell-checker lets you find errors and fix them faster.

Data Usage: Users can now drill down into their data usage over a certain period of time, including the ability to see which apps are the biggest data hogs and the ability to limit data usage to a certain threshold.

People App: A new spin on the contact list. The phone’s owner has their own profile, and people’s contact details are sourced from Google+, Facebook, Twitter, etc. Users can define favorite contacts, and individual people can be placed on the homescreen or in folders for quick access.

Capture the picture you want, edit, and share instantly.

Live Effects let you change backgrounds and use Silly Faces during video.

Snapping a screenshot.

Android Beam lets users share what they are using with a single tap.

 

Browser: The stock browser now sports tabs, and it maxes out at 16. Web pages can now also be saved offline for later perusal, and users can directly request the desktop version of a site.

Gmail: Gmail now supports two-line previews, and sports a new context-sensitive action bar at the bottom of the screen. Gesture support allows you to swipe left and right between emails

Watch~ Samsung & Google's Ice Cream Sandwich event Liveblog~
http://www.engadget.com/2011/10/18/samsung-and-googles-ice-cream-sandwich-event-liveblog/

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