Android Police has gotten exclusive screenshots of the Gmail, Calendar, and Email widgets for the upcoming Android 4.0, Ice Cream Sandwich. As you can see with the Gmail widget above, the Ice Cream Sandwich version features a slightly upgraded UI, but is missing Labels. Below is calendars
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Sad news from the Android camp as both Google and Samsung announce (via Pocket-lint) that the Galaxy Nexus, also known as the Nexus Prime, will not launch at the Mobile Unpacked conference October 12 next Wednesday, as originally expected. The two companies provided no explanation for the delay apart from this official statement:
Samsung and Google decide to postpone the new product announcement at CTIA Fall. We agree that it is just not the right time to announce a new product. New date and venue will be shortly announced.
The CTIA conference runs October 11-13, 2011 at San Diego’s Convention Center. The publication speculates that the delay could be related to avoiding a likely media conflict if Steve Jobs’ funeral were to happen that day. The wording of the official statement, that “it is just not the right time to announce a new product”, supports the thesis.
UPDATE: Ina Fried over at the AllThingsD blog quotes unnamed sources who said Google and Samsung “just felt it was the wrong time to hold a launch event, as the world continues mourning Jobs”. Furthermore:
The decision to postpone things was made late last night at the top levels of both companies, sources said, with Jobs’ death being the reason. There are no delays with the product itself, sources insisted.
Samsung and Google later updated their original press statement, which now reads:
We believe this is not the right time to announce a new product as the world expresses tribute to Steve Jobs’s passing.
Another possibility, albeit much less likely, is an unknown patent issue that might need sorting out.
Confirming previous reports, Conceivably Tech has uncovered a post that Google Chrome will soon be making its way into Android. A post on the Chromium Message Boards tells us that Android’s version of Chrome will have the same features as the desktop version — tabs, Skia 2D graphics library, and maybe a combined search and website bar?
Sadly, there’s no word on when this new browser will hit. Now we’re not drawing any conclusions, but perhaps this will be announced at Google’s (and Samsung’s) event October 11th? For those of you who haven’t heard, Samsung and Google are rumored to announce the Nexus Prime and Ice Cream Sandwich. While this tour didn’t show it, let’s hope Chrome is bundled into ICS.
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Google has posted more information on their Android Developers Blog this afternoon shedding more light on prepping Honeycomb apps for the release of Ice Cream Sandwich. Ice Cream Sandwich is due out in the coming months, as confirmed by Eric Schmidt. Google outlines the main problem that needs to be addressed is that Honeycomb apps are set to be on a larger screen, and since Ice Cream Sandwich will be on smaller screens there needs to be changes.
So, if you’ve developed a tablet app on Honeycomb, it’s important that your app do one of two things: prevent installation on smaller screens or (preferably) support smaller screens with the same APK.
Obviously, you could choose to only have your app run on a larger screen, but in most cases we’d imagine you’d want it compatible on both a small or big screen. We’ll save you from getting the code from us, so we’ll direct you to Google’s full post.
[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JDl5hb0XbfY&feature=player_embedded]
We already expected Ice Cream Sandwhich, Google’s forthcoming overhaul of Android, to land sometime in the fall thanks to rumors of the Droid Prime landing on Verizon in October. However, a October/November release has now been officially confirmed by Eric Schmidt himself during the Dreamforce conference in San Francisco (video above).
“We have a new operating system, internally known as Ice Cream Sandwich for some reason, which is being released in October/November, which everyone’s really excited about.”
It’s also possible that the rumored Nexus Prime could be landing sometime in or shortly after that timeframe as well. As Android and Me points out, it might even land on Google TV in lieu of a public Honeycomb refresh.
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Like every other company on the block, Sony is ready to get into the tablet game. The Sony S1 was announced earlier this year, but a new report from Engadget says the tablet will now be dubbed the Tablet S. The Tablet S will be rocking a 9.4-inch touchscreen and Android, and will hit stores sometime in the first two weeks of September.
At launch, the Tablet S will be shipping with Android 3.1, but will be upgraded to Ice Cream Sandwich when it becomes available later this fall. Some other things to note about the device are a 5-megapixel shooter and 3-megapixel front-facing camera. The price of the Tablet S is rumored to be $599, but that’s not confirmed yet. As for the S2, the S1’s successor, we’re not quite sure of it’s availability or if it will follow the same naming scheme.
Check out a hands-on of the device after the break:
If you we’re lucky enough to get your hands on one of those $99 HP TouchPad‘s this weekend, you’ll probably want to stay up to date with the “Touchdroid” project. Over at RootzWiki, the Touchdroid team is apparently hard at work on getting Android (2.3 Gingerbread to be exact) ported to the device that’s currently running the soon to be extinct WebOS.
The project is still in its infancy, to say the least. However, the timing couldn’t be more perfect with a ton of new Touchpad users undoubtedly itching to shed that ugly, outdated WebOS. The wiki also notes a Honeycomb port will follow only if Ice Cream Sandwich isn’t released in the meantime. Swing by the RootzWiki forum if you’re interested in contributing or just keeping up to date on the project. We’ll keep you updated as the guys get closer to a stable beta.
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[youtube=http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=44sOtEy3xpQ&feature=player_embedded]
Samsung has just released a couple teaser videos, which don’t seem to be teasing much other than the fact they will be making an announcement at IFA in Berlin on September 1st. As you can see from the video above, it’s essentially your average, run-of-the-mill smartphone ad but with the devices themselves blurred out by a mysterious glowing light. However, the thing that really gets our attention is the “Something Big is Coming” text at the end of the video.
While the ad clearly shows an actor placing the device up to his ear (indicating a phone rather than a tablet), there is also a suspicious amount of thumb typing in landscape mode going on and the glow on the device right at the end of the video above appears to be significantly larger than others. Perhaps hinting at a hybrid device of sorts.
There is no shortage of rumoured devices from Samsung that could easily be announced at IFA. We told you about a huge leak that gave us insight into seven Android smartphones and two tablets the company is currently working on. Perhaps the most impressive device from the leak was the “GT-I9250”, a 4.65-inch device running Ice Cream Sandwich and sporting a 1280x720p resolution. However, at this point it could very easily be anyone of the tablets or phones we know Samsung currently has in the works. We’ll be covering the announcement live as it happens so stay tuned for the latest.
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Android Police and RootzWiki have both obtained exclusive shots of Google’s next version of Android, Android 4.0 dubbed Ice Cream Sandwich. Interestingly, RootzWiki says there aren’t many changes, but a couple of UI — mainly everything’s Blue.
- Blue Themed – Like our site (Change theme on bottom)
- Camera has built in panorama mode
- Will launch with Google Shopper and NFC Enabled devices will be able to utilize those features
- Gmail is all rethemed
- Will be available for the Nexus S
