Android 4 (Ice Cream Sandwich) Images Leak, New Features Spotted

While the whole world goes gaga over the Android tablet operating system, Honeycomb and the new updates 3.1 and 3.2, there are updates headed towards phones. Google clearly specified that 2.4 (or 4.0) would be designed for older phones, as well as for the tablets and other embedded devices such as televisions. Leaked images posted on the RootzWiki and Android Police gives us a glimpse of some of the features of the new update. The images show a new app launcher and also an updated theme with a blue scheme, instead of the dark grey and green we’ve seen on Gingerbread. The Gmail app interface seems to have been reworked, as well.

Coming (hopefully) to a phone near you…

The changes are not all cosmetic though. Android 2.4 brings in a new camera app that supports panorama shooting out of the box. One of the icons on the homescreen at the bottom right looks like a task manager with multiple apps running within it. The Nexus S is said to be receiving the update, but the first phone to come built with it would be the Samsung-built, Google Nexus Prime. The homescreen will have an integrated Google Search feature like on the Honeycomb platform. All devices launched roughly in the last year should be able to get this update and we’re hoping any older devices will get it via the many custom ROM developers.

More from News & Analysis

What is the US HIRE Bill and why is India’s $250-billion IT sector worried? Is the internet dead? What's this theory that OpenAI's Sam Altman says might be true?