Cream Sandwich

Five 'Cream Sandwich' stories January 2012 - October 2012

AT&T announces ICS update for Pantech Burst and Element

Élyse Betters Oct 4 2012 - 7:06 am PT

Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is now available to AT&T’s Pantech Burst and Pantech Element.

AT&T revealed the announcement this morning for the lower-end LTE-powered smartphone and tablet on its consumer blog, where the carrier further explained the mobile OS would add a bevy of new features to the dual-core processor devices.

A few of the software features include:

With this update, Pantech Element customers will have resizable widgets and an updated Setup Wizard with additional training information. Android 4.0 will provide support for Burst users with Native Sync for AT&T Address Book, as well as expanded camera options such as Self-Mode and Panorama Capture. Also featured is the new Recent Apps button, which lets users move directly from one task to another using the list in the System Bar.

Download the ICS update:

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Google: Ice Cream Sandwich is now on 11 percent of Android devices

Jordan Kahn Jul 3 2012 - 6:19 am PT

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With the rollout of Jelly Bean to a number of new devices just around the corner, Google updated its platform statistics today on the Android Developers website. After having been released for nine months, Ice Cream Sandwich was able to post an increase. However, it remains at just under 11 percent of total Android devices. That is an increase of approximately 3.8-percent for ICS 4.0 and 4.0.4, and it definitely highlights the fragmentation issues Android continues to face. Jelly Bean is not included in the platform stats, because it has not launched on any devices available to consumers.

Google also released updated information about the number of devices currently utilizing a particular screen configuration. The graph below shows the majority of Android devices are still running what Google classified as “Normal/hdpi,” which is a configuration that includes devices roughly 3.5-inches to 4.5-inches with at least 470dp-by-320dp:

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Ice Cream Sandwich awarded best platform at Parsons User Experience Awards

Jordan Kahn Jun 13 2012 - 11:54 am PT

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As noted by BGR, Google’s own Matias Duarte announced on his Google+ page that Android, specifically Ice Cream Sandwich, has been awarded the Gold Prize for best platform at the Parsons School of Design’s 2012 User Experience Awards:

Ice Cream Sandwich won the Gold Prize for best platform experience at Parsons’ 2012 User Experience Awards! Way to go team!

Thanks to Parsons for hosting a great event and thanks to IXDA, NYC UPA, and NYC CHI. We need more celebrations of UX like this!

Report: Google to launch Android 5.0 Jelly Bean in 2Q12

Jake Smith Feb 15 2012 - 11:43 pm PT

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Just as you are getting content with Google’s latest Android offering Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich, there are more rumors tonight on Google’s next version of Android. The sometimes-accurate Digitimes reported that Google might launch Android 5.0 Jelly Bean this summer.

This new version of Android will reportedly have a focus on tablet PCs, but hopefully not like the tablet exclusive Honeycomb. Ice Cream Sandwich hoped to pick up on Honeycomb’s mistakes by unifying both the handset and tablet platforms.

Digitimes said Android 5.0 would have a unique feature, because it will have a dual operating system approach. It will reportedly be able to boot into both Android and Chrome without having to shutdown. Perhaps Chrome will be part of the experience like it did with the launch of the browser as an app.

We will most likely hear more at Google I/O in June where Google does many of its big announcements.

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Anandtech’s take on ICS/Galaxy Nexus/Mobile computing

Seth Weintraub Jan 19 2012 - 3:33 pm PT

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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_embedded&v=Nfgs4EUeTlk]

AnandTech does its typical thorough job of reviewing the Galaxy Nexus and, as you can see above, there is an in-depth analysis of the mobile landscape. The conclusion was not much different from ours, however. Spoiler:

As far as Ice Cream Sandwich is concerned, it really is Android perfected. Everything is smoother, faster and nearly all of our issues with the OS have been addressed. ICS brings Android into 2012 and gives Google a great platform to begin to introduce new features going forward. Android is now very close to UI performance parity with iOS, which eliminates a major tradeoff you had to make in the past. If you were hoping for ICS to be iOS with a Google logo on it, you’ll be sorely disappointed. However if you’re a fan of Android and just wished it were smoother and more polished, Ice Cream Sandwich is what you’ve been waiting for.

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