Android 4.0 (Ice cream sandwich) has been announced, and so has the new Galaxy Nexus.
I am looking forward to this android update, and it is supposed to be a large one! It is supposed to be a combination of the divergent HoneyComb (3.0 series) OS for tablets, and the current gingerbread (2.3) for phones.
It looks to have a ton of new features, including:
- A beautiful new user interface
- Recent Apps button, that appears to work like the Windows 7 task manager
- Unlocking the phone using facial recognition and the front facing camera
- Swipe actions to dismiss notifications, browser tabs, ect.
- Better keyboard
- Ability to set warning and cutoff points for your data usage
- Built in panoramic camera
- Sharing information with other Android Devices using NFC by just touching them together
- Faster Web browsing (with faster javascript engine)
It looks to be a fairy major update, and does resemble Honeycomb’s user interface.
I would bet on it being available on the new Galaxy Nexus when it is available (most likely, like usual, in early January or late December), and most likely slow updates coming out to all devices (although Android 4.0 isn’t supposed to have as much manufacture “skinning”, so it might roll out much faster).
You can see more details at the official Android 4.0 Platform highlight page:
http://developer.android.com/sdk/android-4.0-highlights.html