The arrival of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) brings with it a number of new features, including a refined UI, a redesigned app launcher, Resizable widgets and improved text input and spell-checking.
The update is currently limited to US Wi-Fi only models, with the Wi-Fi/3G version expected to receive the upgrade over the coming weeks.
Motorola Xoom
becomes first Honeycomb tablet to recieve Android 4.0
The full changelog has been detailed as follows:
• Updated Browser with faster rendering, zoom and pan: Users can also now save pages for offline reading and request desktop versions of websites.
• Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks, and browser tabs: You can now dismiss individual notifications, apps from the Recent Apps list, and browser tabs with a simple swipe of a finger.
• Redesigned app launcher: In All Apps launcher, you can now simply drag an app to get information about it, immediately uninstall it, or disable a pre-installed app.
• New System Font for Improved Readability: An entirely new typeface (called Roboto) optimized for high resolution screens improves readability and brings a polished feel to the user interface.
• Updated “People” Application: Replaces contacts and integrates seamlessly with Google+ and other social networks.
• Improved text input and spell-checking: The keyboard now features improved accuracy to make text input faster. It also now includes an in-line spell checker to make corrections easier.
• Type with your voice: Now you can simply touch the microphone on the keyboard and start talking to write emails, SMS, or any other text—more than 20 languages supported. Text appears in real time, so there’s no waiting for server processing.
• Richer and versatile imaging capabilities: For capturing larger scenes, the camera introduces a single motion panorama mode. Also, you can now take still shots while shooting video just by tapping the screen as video continues to record. You can also launch camera directly from the Lockscreen. When you shoot videos, you can now choose from a number of silly faces and other fun effects which recognize individual facial features so you can give your friends big eyes, squeeze heads, make noses bigger, or change the scenery with background replacement.
• Redesigned Gallery app with photo editor: To help pictures look their best, the Gallery now offers a powerful photo editor so you can crop and rotate pictures, set levels, remove red eyes, add effects, and much more.Richer, resizable widgets You can expand widgets to show more content, or shrink them to save space.
The Motorola Xoom is the first of the Tegra 2 tablets to receive the Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade. More ICS upgrades on a range of old and new devices from manufacturers including ASUS, Lenovo and Samsung are expected to rollout through the course of the year.
