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Android Ice Cream Sandwich SDK Released
Hitting the front page for the first time, ttong writes "The highly anticipated Android 4.0 (codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich) has been released and finally brings the features of 3.x Honeycomb to smaller devices. Some of the highlights include: a revamped UI, a much faster browser, face unlock, a vastly improved camera app, improved task switching, streaming voice recognition, Wi-Fi Direct, and Bluetooth Health Device Profile. ... The API level is 14, download the new SDK here."
calc noted that the source code has yet to be released (Google account required) except to legally required GPL components. Supposedly progress is being made toward getting AOSP back online: "We're working on it and we're making good progress, but we're not ready to announce any additional details yet." How many of the new features will remain proprietary and tied to Google services remains to be seen.
I heard my bother talking on the phone about this awhile ago... It seems like one of the most weird and random names to call something. I get it, code names are cool, and people readily recognize them. But you sound absolutely silly for doing so. Who wants to go to a meeting and tell their bosses that they're thinking of: "Replacing Honeycomb with Ice Cream Sandwich on all our android devices"?
Use the damn version numbers, PLEASE.
WARNING! This girl exceeds the MAXIMUM SAFE standards established by the FDA for BRATTINESS
is the miserable battery life. My droid Incredible goes barely a day and a half with little to no good smartphone usage. If I use the internet or video at all the battery is gone in less than a day. I even have all the default auto-running programs deleted. I will probably go back to iphone after this just because of its incredible battery life. I had the 3g and it was amazing.
Do you get wafers with it?
What flavours are available?
It says there on the website that "The new voice input engine lets users dictate the text they want, for as long as they want, using the language they want.", but... well, is it really true? Can I just start blabbing out in Finnish, or does that actually mean "using the language they want as long as it's one of the few select languages"? If it's the latter then it's obviously not all that useful or wonderful as they make it out to be.
The asshole that hacked kernel.org?
Because of him we don't yet see source of 4.0?
Or its just Google trying to feed us bullshit again?
face unlock
Does that mean if someone steals my phone and my wallet, all they have to do is hold the drivers license up to the cam to unlock? Sounds like a very bad idea.
"Science flies us to the moon. Religion flies us into buildings." - Victor Stenger
my first post!
Oh come on Anonymous Coward. You've been posting for as long as I've been on Slashdot. Nobody believes this is your first post.
When our name is on the back of your car, we're behind you all the way!
Have they fixed the appalling development platform for programming Android apps? I've some experience of programming for the iPhone, and as I can already program in Java I thought I'd give Android programming a try late last year. The API is horrible - standard Java classes replaced by poorly designed alternatives for no apparent reason, those horrible XML files as the preferred way of designing a UI, and unavoidable casts all over the place. When I got to the bit in the tutorials about apps being forcibly restarted when the orientation changes I cried with laughter. It feels a proof of concept rather than a polished development platform, as though Google bought a work in progress and couldn't be arsed to finish it because they needed to get it out quick in order to compete with iOS. Compared to the best practices with regular Java programming, it's as though the Android SDK ignores all the lessons of the last twenty or more years of object oriented programming ...
I just hope that my phone gets updated to this. I'm still stuck with Froyo and my phone just came out in July. That's one of the most frustrating aspects of Android phones - the manufacturers do not upgrade the phones. With the quick turnover in phone OSes, it's inexcusable for manufacturers to stick with old OSes. I can understand if the phone hardware cannot handle the upgrade but I know that many phone manufacturers simply do not want to support their devices. Instead, to get updates we have to turn to CyanogenMod. This is one reason iPhones are so popular (yes, I know Android is overtaking iOS but the iPhone is the most popular smartphone model), at least Apple does a good job of updating iOS and getting it to as many iPhones as possible.
All this being said, Android 4.0 looks great.
I've really been thinking about purchasing the Samsung Galaxy Player 5. I don't have a need for a smartphone as I find wifi + Google Voice to be more than adequate to meet my needs since I shut down my Verizon account and kept my Droid. It's like having a portable landline; I can go to the park without being tied into an endless stream of information.
Are these PMP devices rootable? And will custom ICS ROMs support them?
What would you do for an Android SDK?
The link to that thread seems to work fine for me without a Google account. Is there more that I'm missing?
Where's the full disk encryption? I shouldn't have to rely on a 3rd party app like that Whisper Systems product to provide some fundamental data security for the device.
Considering what these devices are connected to (social networking, email, contacts, pictures etc) you'd think that this was a higher priority than a new font for the clock.
Finally had enough. Come see us over at https://soylentnews.org/
Use a body part that isn't visible in your ID photo.
I'm the real Vorokrytin P. Winterbuttocks.
It looks and feels like Honeycomb, which I have used on a tablet. For mobile phones, this is a substantial boost,
but not that much for tablets. I actually expected more tweaks to it, and that they solve all those effects.
IMHO, it's not up to the hype that was following it. It's all polish and refinement, no stunning new features that'd prompt Jobs to pick up chalk and go back to the drawing board. Oh, and I hope Google patented, for defensive use, every bit of that face recognition gimmick.
Also, Apple makes much of a show when new phone is released. Here, they didn't even show tablet capabilities of 4.0., only the SG Nexus.
Mine technically supports 2.3 if I wanted to root and load my own OS, but the manufacturer/carrier only went to 2.1. It's the manufacturers and carriers: They sold you the phone, they don't give a damn about you anymore. Wait until the next upgrade cycle so they can sell you a new phone. At least Apple supports phones with the latest version for at least two years after release.
And the only relevance that has is for developer support, which is irrelevant since both platforms have easily surpassed critical mass. Also, your statement isn't just restricted to phones. You have to include all iOS devices: phones, tablets and the iPod Touch (and possibly Apple TV, although you don't get the App Store for that). This pushes iOS much higher than Android.
If you want to talk only smartphones, then Apple is outselling them all.
VPN client API
Developers can now build or extend their own VPN solutions on the platform using a new VPN API and underlying secure credential storage. With user permission, applications can configure addresses and routing rules, process outgoing and incoming packets, and establish secure tunnels to a remote server. Enterprises can also take advantage of a standard VPN client built into the platform that provides access to L2TP and IPSec protocols.
this, to me, is the most signifigant part of the release. End-users and IT people have been asking for this forever.
4,65" hd super-amoled display, 1280x720 pixels
1,2 gigahertz dual-core
HSPA+ 21Mbps DL; HSUPA 5.76Mbps UL
Size: 135,5 x 67,94 x 8,94 millimeter, 135 gram
16GB internal memory
Front cam 1,3 mipxel for videoconf
Back cam 5 mpixel
NFC, Bluethooth 3.0, wifi 802.11 a/b/g/n, usb 2.0
More information at http://www.samsung.com/se/news/newsRead.do?news_group=productnews&news_ctgry=&news_seq=29470
Well, at least now they can just hold the phone up to your face while you're tied up instead of beating you senseless with a $5 wrench...
http://xkcd.com/538/
I've actually been very pleased with the update support from Verizon/HTC for my aging Droid Incredible (original, not version 2). This phone started out with 2.1 (Eclair), and shortly received an update to 2.2 (Froyo). The phone was actually 'end-of-life'd this past March but that didn't stop them from providing an update to 2.3 (Gingerbread - the latest version available for phones prior to 4.0's imminent release) just this past September. These are all vendor-sponsored updates mind you, no CyanogenMod required.
So essentially, I've been provided with an update to the latest Android every time a new version has come out since the release of the phone. Can't ask for much more than that.
That's not to say that I'm necessarily expecting an update to 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich), but with today's uber-short product lifecycles I'm pretty happy with the support for this 1.5-year-old phone. And if they *do* update the Droid Incredible to 4.0, that's going to significantly enhance my loyalty to Verizon/HTC to the point where I'll probably insist on the same carrier/vendor when I upgrade.
So Google suck in various OEMs and open source enthusiasts, release two major upgrades and still not release the source code? I'll stick with MeeGo/Mer/Tizen, etc. thank you very much.
Google/Samsung/et al. don't have a separate timeout for slide lock & security lock feature. This was originally an HTC Sense feature but now is also available in CyanogenMod.
Why CyanogenMod? Well, that's because after I wrote the code to replicate & improve upon the Sense feature, I only submitted a patch to CyanogenMod. (Hey, it's what I use...)
The feature is in CyanogenMod 7.1 or later, and any other ROMs that pull from CM 7.1 as an upstream. As stated before, a similar feature is also found in HTC Sense-derived ROMs. However, HTC's implementation isn't as versatile as mine, so I suggest you disregard that and just use CM instead (haha).
Pull the source if you want; port it anywhere you like:
Framework code
UI code
I do Android development, and I had a look at the SDK and emulator when it was released last night. I created an emulator and was testing my applications out on it.
The first thing I noticed is that there are more help screens. I believe they disappear after first use, but they tell users how to navigate around the phone. Or tablet as it may be - that's probably the biggest thing about ICS, it integrates Gingerbread (smartphones) and Honeycomb (tablets) into one OS. I've been getting the hang of Android layout, and it is not so hard once you get used to it, you just stick with the things they recommend - density-independent pixels, scale-independent pixels, objects sized by width and/or height by fill-parent (fill layout container object is in) or wrap-object (make object only as large as it need be), objects or layout containers being assigned by weight. One trick I learned - I start design with the smallest device - WVGA - a small device with a low number of dots per inch. I do a portrait (device held with more height than width), and if I have time a landscape (device held with more width than height) view. Sometimes that is enough, and those two layouts work from the smallest to largest devices. Usually it requires a little tweaking, especially Activity classes that make use of buttons. You take the layouts you made and increase text size, increase the distance between objects and other objects, or objects and the edge of the screen. Some people rethink the design, they use Fragments so that where something that would be done on a small screen with ten screen changes with ten different Activity views, is now done with five screen changes with the same ten different Activity views - you just use Fragments to put two or so Activity views per screen. The ICS smartphone/tablet integration will help in that department, although you can do it to some extent already. In fact Fragments were introduced in Honeycomb (the old tablet Android version, before this ICS tablet/smartphone integration), so some of this is just bringing Honeycomb advances back to the smartphone. Another example of this is the Actionbar - over time the Android designers realized it would help UI consistency, ease of programming etc. if they put a bar on top that let people do things (open an email, go to the next page, whatever). So Actionbar was in Honeycomb, now it is in ICS as well. I should mention there is a compatibility package which allows apps to use many (but not all) of these new features on older phones like Gingerbread, Froyo, Eclair etc.
The next thing I noticed when looking at my apps in the ICS emulator is the new Roboto font. It is said to be able to be a good font for everything from a small, low density to a large screen with a high density. Some of my apps use the Android non-default fonts, and the ones I looked at looked most the same, although there may have been small tweaks I did not notice. And Android lets you use your own fonts.
One of my applications runs in the background, doing a database search while updating a progress bar - and while all of this is happening, an ad is often being loaded as well via the web. It seems to be stalling on something in the ICS emulator, I will do some debugging later to see where it is getting stuck. It may be one of those cases where I was doing something wrong but Android allowed it, and they increased the strictness of things. With ICS's use of Fragments, I can probably just load one ad Fragment when my app starts and put that on every screen anyhow.
Regarding source code, I'm sure it will be released. It will be a month or so before you can buy a Samsung Galaxy Nexus anyhow. The sooner the release the better for me, but Android's open nature beats Windows 8 Mango and iOS any day. I can sit at my Linux box, use open source tools to develop everything, and then just push it out to Android Market (or some other market - Android does not lock phones to their store like Apple does). It is beyond me why Apple punishes developers with an app sto
If you want to talk only smartphones, then Apple is outselling them all.
If you want to talk only smartphones, then Android is outselling iOS. There's no reason why the manufacturer should magically become more relevant than the OS just because you're talking about a specific type of device.
This is from one of the Android devs:
https://plus.google.com/112413860260589530492/posts/DDTKFhiDS9U
"Support for Encryption for Phones
Honeycomb added full-device encryption, but ICS brings it to phones."
Guess they figured it too boring for the launch demo.
Like we did for all Honeycomb release, this is NOT the full source tree for IceCreamSandwich, these are only the GPL parts that are in the SDK (along with a few associated files), and they're not enough to build the whole IceCreamSandwich for a device.
One of the fundamental principles behind the GPL is that if you used GPL parts to make a whole work, then the whole work must also be GPL:
"You must cause any work that you distribute or publish, that in whole or in part contains or is derived from the Program or any part thereof, to be licensed as a whole at no charge to all third parties under the terms of this License. "
"These requirements apply to the modified work as a whole. If identifiable sections of that work are not derived from the Program, and can be reasonably considered independent and separate works in themselves, then this License, and its terms, do not apply to those sections when you distribute them as separate works. But when you distribute the same sections as part of a whole which is a work based on the Program, the distribution of the whole must be on the terms of this License, whose permissions for other licensees extend to the entire whole, and thus to each and every part regardless of who wrote it. "
It's quite obvious that "IceCreamSandwich" is a whole work, and that it contains GPL parts.
I'll just note two points:
1) Older Apple devices do get abandoned by Apple. My early iPod touch is locked at iOS 3.3 and Apple has made it clear that it will not receive updates.
2) The exciting "Siri" feature available on the iPhone 4S does not work on earlier phones, even though they do get an iOS 5 update. The official reasoning is that earlier phones are not powerful enough, but this seems to be dubious (even David Pogue, the super Apple fanboy seems to doubt this).
Bottom line: Apple plays the "obsolete" game pretty well, too.
On the other side, while Android has had painful fragmentation in the past, Google is claiming, at least, that Android from version 4.0 onwards will be able to run on older devices, though obviously not all features will be supported there. And Google is trying to muscle vendors into a consortium which *requires* them to provide updates for older phones. We'll see how well this happens! And this is all for future phones and Android versions, of course: current "early adopters" of Android will be stuck with the existing mess.
Really the only "secure lock" part in your mobile phone is the SIM PIN query. The rest is more or less for show.
The primary function of the lock screen is to prevent accidental keypresses.
Therefore unlocking it with your face or your coffee mug works just as well, it won't get unlocked by mistake in your pocket or your bag.
Honestly, does someone think a screen wipe pattern is somehow secure? You can check the greasy fingerprints what the pattern is. Same applies to PIN codes so remember to wipe your phone screen after unlocking the PIN.
Well they obviously didn't use the new Android 4.0 Spell Checker on their release notes... how many times can you accidentally type continously instead of continuously?
There's no reason a type of device should magically become more relevant than the OS.
Are you listening? My Archos 5 is still stuck permanently at 1.6. And now they're working on 4? It's getting a bit depressing.