Ice Cream Sandwich On The Samsung Galaxy S2 - Features To Expect

Today's most famous handset, the Samsung Galaxy S2 received the latest version of the Android platform for mobile phones. This is the Android 4.0 also known as the Ice Cream Sandwich. You will enjoy your Galaxy S2 more with this latest Operating System from Android.

Let us now talk about the features that you can expect with the Ice Cream Sandwich. The following are features that will make you love your Galaxy S2 more:

Refined and Evolved User Interface - With this, you will experience the real power of Android. The Ice Cream Sandwich is designed to make your every common action more noticeable. It will also allow you to navigate your handset with intuitive yet simple gestures. You will experience refined animations and get instant feedback all through out its system. This will make your interactions more interesting and engaging at the same time. This is entirely a new typeface that is optimized for high-resolution screens. With the Galaxy S2's 4.3 inch SUPER AMOLED Plus display; you can't imagine what this platform is capable of doing and giving you. Everything is evolved and improved when it comes to readability. It is also capable of giving you a modern feel (and one that is polished) when it comes to this new UI.

Customizable and Resizable Widgets - With this latest Android Platform, you will experience customizable and content rich home screens. This leaves behind the old way of just adding shortcuts. You can actually embed any live application or content directly through your chosen widgets. Your widgets will allow you to check your e-mail, play your favorite music, flip through your calendar, check your social streams (feeds), and a whole lot more. This is without leaving your Galaxy S2's home screen and without launching any apps. You can resize your widgets to your heart's desire. You can shrink or expand them; it all depends on your preferences.

New and Powerful Voice Input - This latest platform will allow you to use voice input engine. This will give you continuous "open microphone" and streaming voice recognition. You can dictate whatever text you want and for as long as you want, by just using your preferred language. You can talk for as long as you like and even pause when you want and simply dictate needed punctuations to be able to make proper sentences. When the program enters your text, it will automatically underline dictation errors and shade it in gray. You can simply tap the errors and quickly replace them with the given list for instant correction.

These are just some of the amazing features that you can expect with the latest Android platform for your beloved Samsung Galaxy S2.

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The Ice Cream Sandwich Vs Gingerbread

Released on November 17 2011, the Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) is set to be the next big thing in the world of Android operating systems, bringing a completely different look to Android. The ICS (Android Version 4.0) promises to be compatible with almost every Android device.

The ICS claims to be very easy to use and it certainly does have some great navigation tools and makes searching for apps and the like on your hand set so much easier, but the ICS is not the only 'next big thing' to hit the market and claim to change the ever-popular Android operating systems, because Google's Gingerbread has also recently been launched and threatens to knock the ICS off one of the highest spots on the consumer market.

After having a detailed look at both the Ice Cream Sandwich and the Gingerbread systems I am tending to swing towards the ICS mainly because it is much easier to use and is more widely available.

Similarities

There are a lot of similarities between the two operating systems and although this is good in some respects, it can make it hard for the consumers to decide which one is better for them.

At the moment, both of the Android operating systems seem to work well when it comes to working hard to save your battery by closing down any apps that are running in the background and they both have a newer, faster and better keyboard that works even harder to improve the predictive text function so you don't accidentally type a word that could change the whole context of the conversation and confuse things.

There does seem to be one thing that the Gingerbread is slightly better at than the ICS and that is helping you to save the battery. It will work out for you what apps use the most battery power and then its up to you to decide whether or not you want to stick with them and although this could be a good thing, it seems to me the Gingerbread system is shouting 'Look what I can do!' and using up more memory when the ICS just gets on and does its job.

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While the ICS is available on most new handsets and can be downloaded on other older handsets, the Gingerbread operating system is not as widely available and those with HTC, Samsung and some Sony devices are still waiting to use this system that has been available for months and well before the Ice Cream Sandwich made its appearance on the market in November 2011, and users of the LG, Motorola and Samsung phones are still waiting for an upgrade while the ICS continues to flourish.

Although the Gingerbread operating system does work well and makes an effort to save battery power, it's availability is lacking and by the time the makers decide to make it more widely available, the Ice Cream Sandwich would have found its way to many more mobile devices and made even greater improvements while the main ingredients are still being added to the Gingerbread.

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New Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Features That Make Your Phone a Joy to Use

A complete and harmonious combination of two substances can create a complete and beautiful result. In like manner, the natural sweetness of Android 3.0 Honeycomb and the crispy layers of Android 2.3 Gingerbread have resulted in a new, tastier treat for Android smartphones and Android tablets--Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Google has been aiming to unite the multiple Android versions into just one version so that one and only one Android runs on whatever device--be it an Android smartphone, Android tablet, Android portable media player, Android TV, Android watch, or wherever else the little green robot can make waves.

What glad tidings does Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) bring to its users? What better experiences can we expect from it? Read on to know more about how Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is being true to Google's description of it: "the best Android we've ever made yet."

Multi-tasking Button

Android 4.0 includes a virtual button that allows you to browse and instantly switch to apps you recently used. The list displays thumbnail images of apps--instead of just icons--so you can see which part of the apps are currently working in the background.

And, if you want to throw away or discard an item on the list, simply flick the thumbnail in order to remove it from the list.

Instant Screenshots with Button Press

There are many instances in which you'd like to share to others what is currently displayed on your screen. There are also times when you just need to save a screenshot for later use. In previous versions of Android, you could take screenshots by installing apps for that purpose. In Android 4.0, it's a built-in feature.

By holding the Power and Volume Down buttons together, your Android smartphone lets you capture screen images instantly.

Improved Notification Bar

There are several improvements that Google has done to the Notification Bar in Android 4.0. For instance, it can now be pulled down from the Lock Screen. Another is that you can discard items from the list of notifications by simply flicking an item to the right. This means that you can remove items on the Notification Bar one by one.

In previous versions of Android, it's either you clear all notifications with one tap or you leave all of them untouched.

The Notification Bar no longer shows a grid layout of recently used apps. Instead, in Ice Cream Sandwich, those apps are shown as a vertical-scrolling strip of app thumbnails. You can also directly control music playback right on the Notification Bar.

Improved Text and Voice Input

The stock keyboard in Android 4.0 has been given more love. It is now faster and more responsive compared to previous versions of Android. The suggestion strip is more accurate now and also includes an in-line spell checker. With one tap, you can select suggested words or add new words to the dictionary.

Copy-and-paste functionality has also been made easier. Just tap and hold down on the selected word, and drag the handles to highlight the selected words. Then you can select "Copy and Paste" from the popup menu, or simply drag the highlighted chunk of text to wherever you wish to insert it.

Google has also incorporated voice-to-text input in Ice Cream Sandwich. Just speak, and the phone converts your spoken words into text. It's a great way to easily and effortlessly "type" text. With Ice Cream Sandwich, voice input is more accurate and can also translate expressions into symbols.

It also accounts for pauses, so you don't have to press anything while thinking of an appropriate response.

Face Unlock

Say goodbye to passwords, PIN codes, and patterns. Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich has personalized phone unlocking much further. With the new Face Unlock feature, an Android smartphone or Android tablet can now recognize the face of its owner.

Just by focusing your face clearly on the secondary front-facing camera of your device, you can unlock your phone instantly. No typing needed. No need to remember passwords. Just look into the camera and let the device recognize you.

Data Usage Monitoring

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich also includes a new graphical display of the data your Android phone is using. You can set warnings for exceeding data usage limits, as well as set how much background data each app can use. Users can have more control over their Android device with this neat option in ICS.

Android 4.0 also comes with improved apps, which can be categorized into three: the core apps (i.e., Google mobile apps such as Android Browser, Gmail, and Calendar), Photos, and People.

Android Beam

Support for Near Field Communication (NFC) is baked into Android 4.0, and Google has made sure that Ice Cream Sandwich has a ready app to leverage the technology.

Called Android Beam, the app revolutionizes the way that people share files and data among one another. With NFC and Android Beam, one can send a file to another user simply by bringing two Android phones close to each other and tapping the phones against each other. Any file can be shared in this manner--photos, documents, maps, apps, bookmarks, and so on.

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich surely packs a fresh new look and exciting new features that will truly make your device perform better as a smartphone. With Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich soon replacing the older versions of Android on recent Android smartphones, these new features will eventually start a new wave of more convenient and more efficient use of Android smartphones and Android tablets.

Eager to know more about Android smartphones and Android tablets? Or, perhaps, you already own one and want to know what else that intelligent device can do to make your life just a little bit short of paradise? Learn more about Android smartphones and read Android news at AndroidTidBits.com.

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Top 3 Design Improvements in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Google's latest update to its world-famous Android mobile operating system includes not just a strengthening of the operating system itself but also an overall redesign of the elements in its user interface.

If you loved the easy and user-friendly interface of either Android 2.3 Gingerbread or Android 3.0 Honeycomb, you will also love the new improvements in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, which supposedly brings together the best elements of Gingerbread and Honeycomb.

Here are the three top design improvements that Google implemented in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich.

Typography That's Easy on the Eyes

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich will enchant users with an Android that is completely redone and made over--starting with its typeface called Roboto, which is used all over the various screens and widgets.

Roboto is a sans-serif typeface introduced in the latest Android 4.0 operating system. Google described it as a "modern, yet approachable" font. Despite having been criticized for imitating more popular and well-established typefaces such as Helvetica, Univers, or Myriad, the new typeface in ICS does make reading text easy on an Android smartphone.

It is the very typeface that appears in Ice Cream Sandwich's magazine-type design ethos--big pictures, bold headlines, lots of resting spaces for the eyes (called "white space" in publication parlance).

The Lock Screen in Android 4.0, for instance, reeks of Roboto all around. The digital clock is in Roboto. The day, date, and charging information are in Roboto. Roboto is splattered all over Ice Cream Sandwich. Apart from Roboto on the Lock Screen, Google has also updated the live wallpaper on the lock screen--it now shows rich but subtle animations of blue orbs rising skywards.

New Home Screen

In any Android smartphone or tablet, the Home screen is where everything begins. Unlocking the phone brings you to the Home screen, with an analog clock in the middle of the screen and some virtual buttons below. Ice Cream Sandwich offers a new, innovative way to interact with the device. Virtual buttons have been integrated into the system, and they hide when they know they are not needed. Thus, you get a bigger viewing area with those buttons out of way as you browse the Web with your Android phone or while watching movies or videos.

The Home screen is not only the starting place from where you can run your applications. It is also a place for your widgets, giving you access to important information without the need to go anywhere. And, widgets in ICS, just like in Honeycomb are resizable. You can make them as big as you want, or as small as you want. They are your widgets, and Android 4.0 allows you to have your way with them.

Adding widgets in ICS is also faster and easier. With the widget tab, you can easily locate your widgets, or pick and drag those that you want to drop on your Home screen. With better widgets, ICS gives you that breath of fresh air when it comes to adding your personal touch and customizing your Android phone and its Home screen.

Folders and Favorites Tray

You can think of folders as containers, just like real-life folders, that allow you to group and organize printed documents. In Android 4.0, you can group your favorite apps, contacts, and more into folders. All it takes is dragging and dropping icons from another folder to another. Easy breezy organization and management with folders.

Also, with Android 4.0, you can now customize your Favorites Tray at the bottom of the screen. If you have placed your favorite apps inside one folder, and you want them to be instantly accessible regardless of which screen you're viewing, just place them in the Favorites Tray.

These three design features are not just eye candy. They are meant to be functional improvements whose chief goal is to make Android 4.0 easier and more pleasurable to use. With these improvements in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, users of Android smartphones and Android tablets will get the best of both Gingerbread and Honeycomb.

Eager to know more about Android smartphones and Android tablets? Or, perhaps, you already own one and want to know what else that intelligent device can do to make your life just a little bit short of paradise? Get some TidBits of Android news and reviews at AndroidTidBits.com.

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A Slew of Extra Powerful Apps Baked Into Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Android is not just an operating system that runs underneath a user interface. It is also a suite of well-integrated apps that make it possible for users to use the various hardware capabilities of their Android smartphones and Android tablets.

In the latest version recently released--Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich--Google has further fortified not just the operating system but also the apps that come along with it. In this post, you will get an overview of some of the most important apps that Google drastically revamped in Android 4.0.

Better Web Browsing

For faster browsing, Android 4.0 includes a tabbed browser, which offers you quick previews of Web pages and allows you to swiftly switch from one open tab to another.

The browser can save up to 16 tabs and you can remove unused tabs with a simple flick gesture. Plus, it can also automatically sync Chrome bookmarks on your desktop with your Android phone. No need to install additional apps to sync your bookmarks on your device.

By default, the new browser in Android 4.0 opens mobile versions of Web pages. But, it also gives you the option to switch to the full desktop versions of the same Web pages.

The browser also now includes the option for saving Web pages for offline reading, as well as accessibility features, a history of most visited pages, and an incognito mode for private browsing.

Next-level Gmail

The new Gmail in Android 4.0 displays two-line previews of each email--so you'll get a quick preview of what each email contains.

The new Gmail app also includes an action bar below each message. The action bar provides quick access to the most common actions that you perform on your messages. The app allows you to swiftly browse through your emails by swiping from left to right.

Another interesting feature is Gmail's offline search. The new Gmail app allows you to search within emails within the last 30 days without your having to go online.

Easier Calendar App

The new Calendar app features a simpler and more readable design, which makes it easy for you to follow your everyday schedules.

It also features pinch-to-zoom functions, which allows you to display more details or just the overview of each day just by pinching the screen with your thumb and forefinger.

Photo Snapping and Editing Made Better

Android 4.0 features a drastically revamped Camera app that has zero shutter lag, which allows you to capture precious moments faster.

Users can also now enjoy panoramic photo shooting. Such camera mode allows you to sweep the camera in one smooth motion to capture a subject in panorama mode.

The new Photos app in Android 4.0 also makes photo sharing much easier. Just click on a photo and choose where to share it--either on Facebook, Google+, or Twitter.

The Camera app now includes built-in photo editing tools never before seen in any previous build of Android. So, with Android 4.0, you can now directly edit, crop, or filter your photos right on your Android phone or Android tablet.

The Gallery app has also been given a total makeover. It has been redesigned to display big pictures, with labels rendered in the Roboto font. The layout this time is more magazine-like. Photos are also automatically sorted not just by album but also by geo-location or by custom tags.

Other cool new features in the Camera app are Continuous Focus, Zoom While Recording, Time Lapse, and Video Snapshots--all of which make your Android phone's camera more powerful than ever.

People App Centered on People

The heavily redesigned People app now, more than ever, places stronger emphasis on improved communication, interaction, and faster sharing of information.

The People app goes beyond a mere list of contacts. The People app now shows a wider range of information about your contacts--phone numbers, addresses, social networking sites that they hang out in, and much more

Just like the photos in the Gallery, your contacts are now shown in the People app in a magazine-style layout. Each contact's page displays a high-quality photo of the contact and the contact's most recent social networking updates.

The People app also supports voice mail retrieval much better, and also provides a non-offensive way to reject incoming calls from your contacts.

With this new and heavily improved suite of apps in Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, one can be sure that using an Android smartphone or an Android tablet with Android 4.0 will be nothing less than pleasurable and convenient.

Eager to know more about Android smartphones and Android tablets? Or, perhaps, you already own one and want to know what else that intelligent device can do to make your life just a little bit short of paradise? Get some TidBits of Android reviews and news at AndroidTidBits.com

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What's New in Android 4.0: Ice Cream Sandwich

Android's latest version, Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), has been out just over a month now. Since this version will be available on mobile phones as well as tablets, the market has seen a lot of great devices that are ready to take advantage of the new features that are available in 4.0. Many of these updates are simply upgrades to some of the already existing features in the operating system. This article talks about what these new features are all about.

New Typeface

The old font, "Droid Sans" is out and a new font, "Roboto" is in. Roboto is a typeface designed for the small, high-resolution screens that mobile phone and tablet users have and brings a slick, updated feel to the interface.

Spell-Checker

In ICS, the dictionary and spell-checking have been updated for better error correction and word suggestion. They have tried to improve the identification of double-typed characters, missing spaces and skipped letters. Word suggestion will now only show three words at a time in the suggestion strip. Spell-checker is probably the best improvement in this group since it will now underline misspelled words and suggest replacement words. You can also add words to the dictionary if it is not recognized.

Screenshots

Taking screenshots is often an important feature for some users and now you do not need to tamper with your Android device or install third-party apps in order to take them. You can now take a screenshot by holding down the volume down key and the power button. This will capture the screen and put it in your photos.

Voice Commands

Android 4.0 now has the capability to receive voice commands. You can use the talk-to-text feature to give your phone commands or dictate text messages.

Updated Camera

While previous versions of Android's camera were lacking, there have been some great improvements with 4.0 that were gained with some help from Samsung. The camera was also the area where the most upgrades are happening. ICS devices will now have 1080p video, the shutter lag has been removed, easier photo and video sharing, tap-to-focus, face detection, photo filters, and a photo-stitching panorama mode that allows you to move the camera to take one continuous picture.

Many of these features have been long-awaited by Android fans. There is even various photo editing tools to clean up your pictures and easier ways to share with Google+, text message, Bluetooth, Email and Picasa.

Better Browser

The standard browser is the new Chrome mobile Web browser that syncs bookmarks with other versions of Chrome that you have on your desktop or laptop as well as other mobile/tablet devices. The browser can now save pages for offline reading which is great when you are on the road and unsure of your signal availability. Chrome mobile has been updated greatly for speed and now has the capability to open up to 16 tabs for your multi-tasking pleasure.

Android Bump

Sharing information with other Android devices has become a lot easier with a secure Near Field Communication (NFC) app called Android Bump. Based on the NDEF Push technology, this application will allow two Android devices to share websites, maps, contacts, applications and play games together.

Copy and Paste

Copy and paste functionality got a re-vamp and is much easier to use. You can now move around whole blocks of text.

This update only shows how committed Google is to making Android the top mobile operating system. As you can see, there are many great new features in Ice Cream Sandwich that make it a top contender in the mobile and tablet market. This also shows that we can expect many more great new things from Android in the future.

Michael Dorf teaches at LearnComputer (learncomputer.com), which offers instructor-led local, online and onsite Android training for companies and public. Our flagship Android Bootcamp course will get you writing Android apps in just FOUR days! There is simply no better way to learn Android!

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