What is ICS going to bring feature wise?

[dmchenry35]

I've been a android user for a while, and to me the OS has just kind of stagnated the last year or so with no new "groundbreaking" or really "innovated" features that aren't offered else where. Nothing is really screaming at me to stick with android, other than phones with impressive spec sheets (for phones) and screen sizes.

I dont really want to think it, but I can't help notice this is how it started for RIM's demise as well. Lack of innovation software wise, followed by lack of innovation phone wise.

Any one have any idea what ICS is going to bring to the table? Anything new or noteworthy feature wise? Why should I stick with Android over iOS? After all I've got an iPad and Mac PC systems, I've always enjoyed android OS for phones though over iOS, but iOS5 is looking better and better...

 

[kylef231]

I spent an hour or so online trying to figure out the same thing. All I could find are leaked screenshots and statements from Google like "Yup itll be awesome".

Probably wont know for a few more weeks.

 

[kenwen]

I think groundbreaking innovation pace is slowing - have a look at IOS5 & WIndows 7 Mango. Companies are well, to be diplomatic, borrowing features liberally and nothing is really breaking the mould.

What ICS and Google in general really need to work on is content. I can't buy music, download films, etc from my Nexus S whereas iTunes offers a huge amount of stuff (watching Fawlty Towers at the moment!)

It's been one of the main reasons why I have an android phone, where I prefer the OS and widgets but an iPad for content.

Would love to get an Android tablet but without content it makes for a very expensive way of answering emails!

 

[srkmagnus]

ICS is already rumored to have a new UI. This is from both rumored specs from people in the industry talking about it and a few leaked screen shots. There are also going to be a lot of improvements under the hood, just like we saw from 2.2 to 2.3. Don't get too excited though. A lot of people were disappointed in what they saw from the previous versions. I could care less about the UI and will settle for a smooth handset and let a third party launcher be my customizable feature.

 

[ShawnMeds23]

Will Tables get ICS? Thought a read a while back that Honeycomb was just a bandaid untill they could combine the new Phone OS with a new tablet OS.

 

[cgardnervt]

It will bring me iOS5 if they take away my Sense UI!

Or WebOS is it has yet another come back!

 

[pmugghc]

Will Tables get ICS? Thought a read a while back that Honeycomb was just a bandaid untill they could combine the new Phone OS with a new tablet OS.

black_man_ has tweeted that xoom will be first tablet with ICS.

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[pnoozi]

Hardware acceleration pleeease...

 

[Monk Fury]

I wonder if it is the staggering amount of new hardware (chipsets, displays, form factors,vendors) that is slowing down inovation rotation.

Compaired to a homogenious platform like the iPhone that has no other vendors and homogenious (did spell that right ) platform that they and only they control (you)

Unless you root of course

 

[martyr2k6]

I think groundbreaking innovation pace is slowing - have a look at IOS5 & WIndows 7 Mango. Companies are well, to be diplomatic, borrowing features liberally and nothing is really breaking the mould.

What ICS and Google in general really need to work on is content. I can't buy music, download films, etc from my Nexus S whereas iTunes offers a huge amount of stuff (watching Fawlty Towers at the moment!)

It's been one of the main reasons why I have an android phone, where I prefer the OS and widgets but an iPad for content.

Would love to get an Android tablet but without content it makes for a very expensive way of answering emails!

These are concerns already addressed by the recent updates to the market... you want movies? Market has them, music? Get google music... it's also worth mentioning that if you want content on your android device, you simply plug into your computer and copy what you want onto the device....

Yeah, I'll give Apple it's due that their iTunes store offers a one stop on-device solution for books,musics,games,apps and movies... but you are limited to getting that media from one place at premium prices.

Enter the Android environment... I can use my android tablet (like I am right now) and download the amazon mp3 app, download whatever music I want, and even upload music from my PC to my amazon account to stream them no matter where I am, provided I have wifi... If I wanted to download a movie, I could simply fire up the Google movies app and buy or rent movies to my device and be good to hook...


Or... I could just connect my tab or phone to my computer, and drag and drop whatever I want onto the damned thing and it works like a charm... I have 32 gigss of just music on my phone, more apps than I should, plus plenty of room left for all my pictures and recorded videos... My tab has at least 5 digital copies of movies that I bought, maybe ten books, and links to my home network to stream any and all media on demand.


These devices do everything you want them to do, even if it's not the exact way you want them to do it... it sounds more to me like Apple's devices are more for you, rather than their android counterparts. Widgets are nice, but they don't make and android device special by themselves...

What android means to me, is freedom from the draconian environment that apple has created. I do whatever I want to do with my devices whenever and however I choose to. If I choose to take my media from my tab and put it on someone else's, I can... No breach of agreements here. If I want to have a device that stands out and leave it at work... someone can turn it on and say... "this definately is martyr's" without me having the same setup as jimbob down the hall... my devices are digital representations of my physical self... they work how I want them to, and they do it quite well... if I don't like the OS version that is released, I can turn to the community to pursue different options and even more personalization...

 

[damnusernames]

Artem over on Android Police did a pretty good writeup on features that are expected in ICS.. I still reckon Google have a couple of things up their sleeve that could leave us seriously impressed after the big reveal, here's hoping anyway.

 

[ZachDasher]

Artem over on Android Police did a pretty good writeup on features that are expected in ICS.. I still reckon Google have a couple of things up their sleeve that could leave us seriously impressed after the big reveal, here's hoping anyway.

Thats a great article, i REALLY liked the keyboard that google is hopefully going to put into ICS.

 

[raymagini]

These are concerns already addressed by the recent updates to the market... you want movies? Market has them, music? Get google music... it's also worth mentioning that if you want content on your android device, you simply plug into your computer and copy what you want onto the device....

Yeah, I'll give Apple it's due that their iTunes store offers a one stop on-device solution for books,musics,games,apps and movies... but you are limited to getting that media from one place at premium prices.

Enter the Android environment... I can use my android tablet (like I am right now) and download the amazon mp3 app, download whatever music I want, and even upload music from my PC to my amazon account to stream them no matter where I am, provided I have wifi... If I wanted to download a movie, I could simply fire up the Google movies app and buy or rent movies to my device and be good to hook...


Or... I could just connect my tab or phone to my computer, and drag and drop whatever I want onto the damned thing and it works like a charm... I have 32 gigss of just music on my phone, more apps than I should, plus plenty of room left for all my pictures and recorded videos... My tab has at least 5 digital copies of movies that I bought, maybe ten books, and links to my home network to stream any and all media on demand.


These devices do everything you want them to do, even if it's not the exact way you want them to do it... it sounds more to me like Apple's devices are more for you, rather than their android counterparts. Widgets are nice, but they don't make and android device special by themselves...

What android means to me, is freedom from the draconian environment that apple has created. I do whatever I want to do with my devices whenever and however I choose to. If I choose to take my media from my tab and put it on someone else's, I can... No breach of agreements here. If I want to have a device that stands out and leave it at work... someone can turn it on and say... "this definately is martyr's" without me having the same setup as jimbob down the hall... my devices are digital representations of my physical self... they work how I want them to, and they do it quite well... if I don't like the OS version that is released, I can turn to the community to pursue different options and even more personalization...

I could not have said it better.

 

[yazadd]

These are concerns already addressed by the recent updates to the market... you want movies? Market has them, music? Get google music... it's also worth mentioning that if you want content on your android device, you simply plug into your computer and copy what you want onto the device....

Yeah, I'll give Apple it's due that their iTunes store offers a one stop on-device solution for books,musics,games,apps and movies... but you are limited to getting that media from one place at premium prices.

Enter the Android environment... I can use my android tablet (like I am right now) and download the amazon mp3 app, download whatever music I want, and even upload music from my PC to my amazon account to stream them no matter where I am, provided I have wifi... If I wanted to download a movie, I could simply fire up the Google movies app and buy or rent movies to my device and be good to hook...


Or... I could just connect my tab or phone to my computer, and drag and drop whatever I want onto the damned thing and it works like a charm... I have 32 gigss of just music on my phone, more apps than I should, plus plenty of room left for all my pictures and recorded videos... My tab has at least 5 digital copies of movies that I bought, maybe ten books, and links to my home network to stream any and all media on demand.


These devices do everything you want them to do, even if it's not the exact way you want them to do it... it sounds more to me like Apple's devices are more for you, rather than their android counterparts. Widgets are nice, but they don't make and android device special by themselves...

What android means to me, is freedom from the draconian environment that apple has created. I do whatever I want to do with my devices whenever and however I choose to. If I choose to take my media from my tab and put it on someone else's, I can... No breach of agreements here. If I want to have a device that stands out and leave it at work... someone can turn it on and say... "this definately is martyr's" without me having the same setup as jimbob down the hall... my devices are digital representations of my physical self... they work how I want them to, and they do it quite well... if I don't like the OS version that is released, I can turn to the community to pursue different options and even more personalization...

Well said Couldn't agree more

 

[yazadd]

Thats a great article, i REALLY liked the keyboard that google is hopefully going to put into ICS.

Can you please post the link to this article?

 

[END]

Can you please post the link to this article?

Not sure if it is allowed to post a link to another site, so to be safe, they are probably talking about this article. Google "android police what to expect in ice cream sandwich"

 

[inspire4gfreak]

These are concerns already addressed by the recent updates to the market... you want movies? Market has them, music? Get google music... it's also worth mentioning that if you want content on your android device, you simply plug into your computer and copy what you want onto the device....

Yeah, I'll give Apple it's due that their iTunes store offers a one stop on-device solution for books,musics,games,apps and movies... but you are limited to getting that media from one place at premium prices.

Enter the Android environment... I can use my android tablet (like I am right now) and download the amazon mp3 app, download whatever music I want, and even upload music from my PC to my amazon account to stream them no matter where I am, provided I have wifi... If I wanted to download a movie, I could simply fire up the Google movies app and buy or rent movies to my device and be good to hook...


Or... I could just connect my tab or phone to my computer, and drag and drop whatever I want onto the damned thing and it works like a charm... I have 32 gigss of just music on my phone, more apps than I should, plus plenty of room left for all my pictures and recorded videos... My tab has at least 5 digital copies of movies that I bought, maybe ten books, and links to my home network to stream any and all media on demand.


These devices do everything you want them to do, even if it's not the exact way you want them to do it... it sounds more to me like Apple's devices are more for you, rather than their android counterparts. Widgets are nice, but they don't make and android device special by themselves...

What android means to me, is freedom from the draconian environment that apple has created. I do whatever I want to do with my devices whenever and however I choose to. If I choose to take my media from my tab and put it on someone else's, I can... No breach of agreements here. If I want to have a device that stands out and leave it at work... someone can turn it on and say... "this definately is martyr's" without me having the same setup as jimbob down the hall... my devices are digital representations of my physical self... they work how I want them to, and they do it quite well... if I don't like the OS version that is released, I can turn to the community to pursue different options and even more personalization...

Good job on expressing everyones opinions, including mine. And about this topic... I never doubted google on anything, and especially android inovations and originality, so that's the case this time too. It will be groundbreaking this time too and will bring more people from other OS to android. ALL HAIL GREEN ROBOTS!!!

 

[DerekMorr]

I suspect we'll see a big boost in Javascript performance.

ARM has contributed several patches to the V8 Javascript engine to improve performance: Google's V8 on ARM: Five Times Better - ARM Community

From the blog: "It takes a few months of work for Google to integrate and test the latest V8 engine with new devices, so you will not be able to see these performance improvements appearing in products until the second half of 2011."

It's possible that these improvements could have been integrated into Honeycomb, but since I haven't seen reports of major Javascript improvements in 3.1 or 3.2, I suspect they'll be in ICS.

 

[WarER4X]

Assuming that it works as good as advertise, I like what Apple did with the new "Siri" feature in iOS5. That is about the only think I look at on Android and think to myself that I'd like to see it improved in ICS. All the other improvements I would like to see in ICS are just backend performance improvements, which are always welcome, of course.

Besides, since Apple ripped off Android's notification scheme (among other things), I'm sure they won't mind if Google takes liberties with the Siri engine, right?

-SR-

PS: I love how Apple attempts to vail their IP infringement by playing word games with their press releases, such as "iCloud is not a syncing services, it's a place where all your data and settings are stored". Sort of like saying "this is not a refridgerator, it is an insulated storage box where you can keep things cold".

 

[lddrew]

Besides faster components what do you guys want out of these phones. I cannot think of a outstanding feature I'd like to see. I imagine that's what the developers are running into as well.

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