Database Users

Gingerbread... What Is In Store For Us?

I'm interested in hearing peoples opinions on this.
1. Do you think Gingerbread will bring a complete interface overhaul? I'm talking animations, images, layouts, multi tasking, notifications, launcher & more
2. Do you think it'll be like sense, improving social network integration, tidying up a lot of images images and adding a bit more functionality to widgets etc?
3. Do you think it'll be like a skin, simply taking image files that exist throughout Android and making them look more modern?
If they do infact do (1), do you think we'll lose functionality of some applications? Will apps have to be designed or positioned differently on Gingerbread?
I'm very excited for this, especially after seeing a video of MeeGo OS running on a smart phone, it looked so fly. In my opinion Google is going to need big changes to compete with MeeGo's interface (Not saying MeeGo is gonna take out Android, just saying it looked really nice & polished compared to Android's current state).
Google did good work in 2.1 with the launcher, app draw, animated backgrounds etc. but the stock images, buttons etc look so old. I think it needs an overhaul!

Well apparently 3.0 is gonna give the whole UI and device a revamp of looks so i cant wait to see what they do, I hope they make android become as polished as ios and bring smoother scrolling in.
LevitateJay said:
I'm interested in hearing peoples opinions on this.
1. Do you think Gingerbread will bring a complete interface overhaul? I'm talking animations, images, layouts, multi tasking, notifications, launcher & more
2. Do you think it'll be like sense, improving social network integration, tidying up a lot of images images and adding a bit more functionality to widgets etc?
3. Do you think it'll be like a skin, simply taking image files that exist throughout Android and making them look more modern?
If they do infact do (1), do you think we'll lose functionality of some applications? Will apps have to be designed or positioned differently on Gingerbread?
I'm very excited for this, especially after seeing a video of MeeGo OS running on a smart phone, it looked so fly. In my opinion Google is going to need big changes to compete with MeeGo's interface (Not saying MeeGo is gonna take out Android, just saying it looked really nice & polished compared to Android's current state).
Google did good work in 2.1 with the launcher, app draw, animated backgrounds etc. but the stock images, buttons etc look so old. I think it needs an overhaul!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

msavic6 said:
...and bring smoother scrolling in.
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Click to collapse
This... very much, this.
It's amazing to me that third-party launcher replacements offer perfectly smooth scrolling and the stock OS doesn't. I don't get it.

I also want a whole new camera interface with more control, and a built in note pad,to-do list, the basic functionality of a regular cell phone, better market support like the ability to block certain developers apps from appearing and higher quality apps as well as maybe a ui revamp in the market app. Also make more use of the gpu for graphcs. One last thing add a stock widget that displays time and weather and make it AMAZING.
Thats all i really want
OH and a better stock keyboard.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

My predictions.
- Hopefully a new Multitasking UI
- Improved or customizable notification bar( hasn't changed since 1.0)
- General graphic UI revamp.
A Google employee said of you look at the Nexus One gallery app,expect a similar vibe for the whole UI in Gingerbread.

Oh god, we're just two days into august, the speculation can't start now. Gingerbread was mentioned to be released at the end of the year, which probably means Q1 of 2011. That's quite a ways away!
Once you get this gingerbread speculation rolling, we'll never see the end of it, considering it's only august!

Forge94 said:
A Google employee said of you look at the Nexus One gallery app,expect a similar vibe for the whole UI in Gingerbread.
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I really like the sound of this although I can't think of how they would do this? I really wanna see a web os like multi tasking too

erikikaz said:
Oh god, we're just two days into august, the speculation can't start now. Gingerbread was mentioned to be released at the end of the year, which probably means Q1 of 2011. That's quite a ways away!
Once you get this gingerbread speculation rolling, we'll never see the end of it, considering it's only august!
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Speculation can never begin too early!
If anything, we're late.

I think they are gonna allow us to customize the UI as we see fit. All those Themes and UI's in the Nexus Forum will be able to be added to stock Android's without rooting.

Blueman101 said:
I think they are gonna allow us to customize the UI as we see fit. All those Themes and UI's in the Nexus Forum will be able to be added to stock Android's without rooting.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Neat idea, although I think they'll still need a very nice & tidy stock version/overhaul to go with this as a lot of people will review the stock interface, rather than how you can customise it & many will never bother changing it too I imagine! (I don't understand those sort of people )

I think most of this UI overhaul is pure speculation based on the fact that google hired Palm webOS Designer Matias Duarte. He cannot possibly bring so much change in the few months he has been at google. But I will keep my hopes high that they can give a more smoother UI experience (where android phones/netbooks with additional graphics chip can take advantage of its hardware).
A strong and capable google official Theme Maker app (like metamorph) can bring alot of enthusiasm behind it. Would be tough though with so many unique android devices out there, how can they accommodate them all? :S

mythamp said:
I think most of this UI overhaul is pure speculation based on the fact that google hired Palm webOS Designer Matias Duarte. He cannot possibly bring so much change in the few months he has been at google. But I will keep my hopes high that they can give a more smoother UI experience (where android phones/netbooks with additional graphics chip can take advantage of its hardware).
A strong and capable google official Theme Maker app (like metamorph) can bring alot of enthusiasm behind it. Would be tough though with so many unique android devices out there, how can they accommodate them all? :S
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Click to collapse
i agree. i also believe that many people speculate that Duarte will bring in many UI changes, but as you said we are talking about 3 months which isn't enough time for a person manage to change the whole look of an OS.
i would be happy if google could at least get their act together with the homescreen which is still laggy as hell and the app drawer which has laggy zoom animations on froyo.
Having all those great benchmarks is cool and sometimes froyo is really fast, but especially the homescreen is a huge letdown.
And the homescreen is the place which you will see most of the time...

Shahpur.Azizpour said:
i agree. i also believe that many people speculate that Duarte will bring in many UI changes, but as you said we are talking about 3 months which isn't enough time for a person manage to change the whole look of an OS.
i would be happy if google could at least get their act together with the homescreen which is still laggy as hell and the app drawer which has laggy zoom animations on froyo.
Having all those great benchmarks is cool and sometimes froyo is really fast, but especially the homescreen is a huge letdown.
And the homescreen is the place which you will see most of the time...
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If it's laggy with you i suggest you return your device and get a new one... because this problem doesn't exist on the 3 nexus ones i've used.

I didn't realise he only had 3 months to work with it... :/
Although I imagine he has quite a team working with him to get a lot done in whatever time they have!

I'm running stock Froyo and I don't notice any lag in the homescreen and the app drawer. I installed Launcherpro before and I didn't notice any difference in scrolling. Both stock homescreen and Launcherpro homescreen have smooth scrolling.
Maybe someone can direct me with a video that can show me what a laggy scrolling is like.

yeah i dont get the laggy scrolling either, but then again i use launcher pro for so long now. i'm getting really sick of people comparing choppy scrolling, i want to make a video showing otherwise!! i'll admit certain UI lists do get choppy. but most are not so.

oh and doesnt anybody listen to android podcasts? last week android guys podcast leaked a little rumor that gingerbread was all about tablets, heard from someone directly involved. make of that what you will.

im personally against making the UI look more like iOS... i like the direction that windows 7 mobile is headed with the simplistic 2 tone menus and choice of text over icons.. things like pretty scrolling and fancy animated icons add more bloat

nobody said anything about making the UI look like an iphone, it was said to make the UI be AS POLISHED as the ios is.
norazi said:
im personally against making the UI look more like iOS... i like the direction that windows 7 mobile is headed with the simplistic 2 tone menus and choice of text over icons.. things like pretty scrolling and fancy animated icons add more bloat
Click to expand...
Click to collapse

Gingerbread will make Android look like the Gallery app. If you watch the Google I/O videos on YouTube you see that a new music app is being used which has the UI of the current Gallery app.
So when they were showing off FroYo back at the conference, they already had some work done for Gingerbread.

First Gingerbread details

According to this article (http://phandroid.com/2010/10/18/exclusive-first-android-gingerbread-details/) there is an early build of Gingebread in the wild. If this is true, I believe a leaked rom won't be long away.

That image could be anything, not a great article.

aww I was hoping for some serious overhaul of the UI but it looks to be essentially froyo. Loving the hardware acceleration bit though.

teihoata said:
aww I was hoping for some serious overhaul of the UI but it looks to be essentially froyo. Loving the hardware acceleration bit though.
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My toughts exactly. I bet this explains the rumors of Gingerbread not being the tablet optimized 3.0 OS version we were waiting for. It will be a cleaned up version of Froyo with hardware accerlation. Which sure isn't bad but I'm afraid a lot of users will end up being dissappointed.
Of course the picture can be fake but the source seems pretty solid.

Unless they fix some of the big issues in their current "features", they will have a max exodus to WP7

wow nice article the author is just taking wild pot shots to things that will be on gingerbread.

nexusdue said:
Unless they fix some of the big issues in their current "features", they will have a max exodus to WP7
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Can't see it myself.

booooo! blurry pic means nothing.

nexusdue said:
Unless they fix some of the big issues in their current "features", they will have a max exodus to WP7
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
lmao
WP7 will be a damn train wreck. The Kin's production was haulted a month end because it sold only a few thousand devices. They should probably just call it what it really is, Windows Mobile 6.6
Enjoy your decade old technology with a mediocre gui slapped on top. It's the Microsoft way.
As for Gingerbread, I hope there are alot of behind-the-scene updates. Gui updates can wait if you're cranking things up under the hood like they did in Froyo.

I think that the article has some truth.
It mentions that the Android Green is going to be much more prominent throughout the OS which I think is correct. The new Market has much more green and in the latest Gmail app, when an email is deleted the undo bar that appears is the same green as the green used in the Market.
All this talk of there being a totally brand new UI (like WP7) is wrong. There is nothing wrong with the look of the homescreens so that it why the blurry image looks pretty similar to Froyo. The UI is going to be refreshed which means the UI is going to be consistent throughout the entire OS and apps created by Google.
From what I have seen, the new UI is going to be similar to the current Gallery app and the Android Green is going to be much more prominent throughout the OS. At I/O, a music app was shown which had the same UI as the Gallery app. The latest Car Home app also has the look of the current Gallery app.

Sarg92 said:
I think that the article has some truth.
It mentions that the Android Green is going to be much more prominent throughout the OS which I think is correct. The new Market has much more green and in the latest Gmail app, when an email is deleted the undo bar that appears is the same green as the green used in the Market.
All this talk of there being a totally brand new UI (like WP7) is wrong. There is nothing wrong with the look of the homescreens so that it why the blurry image looks pretty similar to Froyo. The UI is going to be refreshed which means the UI is going to be consistent throughout the entire OS and apps created by Google.
From what I have seen, the new UI is going to be similar to the current Gallery app and the Android Green is going to be much more prominent throughout the OS. At I/O, a music app was shown which had the same UI as the Gallery app. The latest Car Home app also has the look of the current Gallery app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Nothing wrong with this at all. I always wondered after Eclair why Google didn't make more of the OS elements look more like the genie widget or the gallery with the 3Dish grey look. Now if they can get a decent media player and have studios continue to give Android respect and porting good games to our OS I think I'll just keep my eye off that shiny new Dell Venue Pro
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

http://youtu.be/dttyQo3BPrk
Check out that YouTube video, at about a minute into it, you can see the current music app but with a UI similar to the Gallery app.

I just wish they fix the damn stock dialer to dial by name. Dialer One works but is aggravating trying to bounce back and forth.
Honestly the only 2 things I replace right off the bat is the dialer and Launcher Pro. Everything else is stock... and its great.

Sarg92 said:
http://youtu.be/dttyQo3BPrk
Check out that YouTube video, at about a minute into it, you can see the current music app but with a UI similar to the Gallery app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Good looking out! That is some sexy software. If the rest of the OS is going to look like this in a few months I may cry from pure gingerbread induced joy!
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

Sarg92 said:
http://youtu.be/dttyQo3BPrk
Check out that YouTube video, at about a minute into it, you can see the current music app but with a UI similar to the Gallery app.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
If rest of the OS is like that, I might hold off on switching to WM7

nexusdue said:
they will have a max exodus to WP7
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Man I LOVE windows phone 7 trolls!
They bring alot to the forum with their wisdom

ap3604 said:
Man I LOVE windows phone 7 trolls!
They bring alot to the forum with their wisdom
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
He's hardly trolling. Google need to change more than just invisible behind-the-scenes stuff, although adding Flash support was a fairly big deal. Android needs better support for large screens, a much better media/music player (Gapless support is way overdue if nothing else).
I'm perfectly happy with my N1 with 2.2, but Android can't stay still, most of the changes since 1.5 have been background things, tweaking and quite incremental. Hopefully 3.0 has something really good in it to justify my waiting for a decent Android tablet.

knightnz said:
He's hardly trolling. Google need to change more than just invisible behind-the-scenes stuff, although adding Flash support was a fairly big deal. Android needs better support for large screens, a much better media/music player (Gapless support is way overdue if nothing else).
I'm perfectly happy with my N1 with 2.2, but Android can't stay still, most of the changes since 1.5 have been background things, tweaking and quite incremental. Hopefully 3.0 has something really good in it to justify my waiting for a decent Android tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
That's what I'm sayin. We just need a good music player, like the one in the youtube link a few posts above, and more quality apps. I must admit I was pretty excited about WP7, but I'm in the air bc I'd be losing flash for a few months, as well as all the cool *cliche* customizations. If Gingerbread is as good as expected I'm saying.
Sent from my Nexus One using XDA App

if that is indeed the new ui, i can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed. i was expecting something a little more than better icons and an enhanced notification bar lol. can't wait to see this release though

knightnz said:
He's hardly trolling. Google need to change more than just invisible behind-the-scenes stuff, although adding Flash support was a fairly big deal. Android needs better support for large screens, a much better media/music player (Gapless support is way overdue if nothing else).
I'm perfectly happy with my N1 with 2.2, but Android can't stay still, most of the changes since 1.5 have been background things, tweaking and quite incremental. Hopefully 3.0 has something really good in it to justify my waiting for a decent Android tablet.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you for the support. I am glad not everybody just drinks the koolaid.
I would say the biggest task is to finally fix the really long list of bugs and annoyances in current version android/google apps. THEN they should tackle the GUI.
xtop said:
if that is indeed the new ui, i can't help but feel a bit underwhelmed. i was expecting something a little more than better icons and an enhanced notification bar lol. can't wait to see this release though
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I am 100% with you on that.
I really like how MS thought outside the box for WP7/Zune.

Gingerbread 2.3 is major update?

I really don't see any real improvement to the ui . Didn't they said it'd be better looking and more useability and fun? Still ugly to me. Give me launcherpro with 2.2 and I'm happy. Gingerbread 2.3=fail
Sent from my SCH-I500 using XDA App

I think the UI rehaul is for 3.0 Honeycomb.

Google has not even said anything about Android 2.3 other then its going to be called Gingerbread. Never said it was going to be a major update or completely change the UI. All the rumors speculated about a UI change but only subtle changes.

Yep, there's nothing official about gingerbread. We will know more once the xda gang get it on our devices!

generalamerica said:
I think the UI rehaul is for 3.0 Honeycomb.
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Click to collapse
Honeycomb is geared towards better tablet compatibility.

I think the major UI overhaul that was planned for Gbread was pushed back to Honeycomb. I'm not sure if this is because of the timing of the hire of Duarte (as in, maybe the UI was halfway there, they hired Duarte, and he scrapped it), or because they just didn't think they had time to implement it.
Either way, I think the major changes to Gingerbread will be under its skin... everyone's just focusing on the UI because that was probably the biggest touted change. My prediction is that we'll see better utilization of hardware, and thus improved efficiency... plus a number of new (but minor) features.

joshnichols189 said:
Honeycomb is geared towards better tablet compatibility.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
From what I've heard Honeycomb is geared for tablets and superphones and it will start a split of higher end phones getting 3.0 and lower end phones get 2.X. I've seen a guy's phone that said he had 3.0 and it doesn't look like standard Android, the UI was much different. So unless he just had an awesome rom I'm sticking with there will be a UI change in 3.0.

this post is silly. if you think android is an ugly system and UI just use something else.
Launcher Pro looks exactly the same as the standard launcher besides the dock area.

It's a pretty widespread opinion that the Android UI is ugly, and that's the reason why Google is supposed to be overhauling it.
If it was beautiful I doubt manufacturers would spend so much money overhauling it as if it was Symbian 5th edition.

N8ter said:
It's a pretty widespread opinion that the Android UI is ugly, and that's the reason why Google is supposed to be overhauling it.
If it was beautiful I doubt manufacturers would spend so much money overhauling it as if it was Symbian 5th edition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I agree that Android's UI needs some help. I'm liking the flat sharp look they're going for. Also, good to see they're sticking with black and green to try to keep consistency. Only little was shown on Gingerbread, but I'm liking it.
Also, even after Google does an overhaul, they will still skin it. It's not about whether it looks good or not, its about setting themselves apart from the competition.

EggoEspada said:
Also, even after Google does an overhaul, they will still skin it. It's not about whether it looks good or not, its about setting themselves apart from the competition.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Thank you. I could not agree more with that statement.
Everyone has a personal preference. Some people love the ios ui; some people like me hate it. Yes I prefer Android and personally I prefer my android mostly unskinned (other than maybe a simple black bar theme -- ala Desire). It sounds like I'm in the minority -- but I also dislike 99% of the OEM skinned options like Sense, Motoblur, etc. The most important factor in those being what people in the company designing the UI want THEIR phone to feel like. Then this causes outrage from the users that don't like it. You can't please everyone. /rant

I believe there will be MINOR changes, most likely at a kernel and java level.

Well, I hope that there will be some significant improvement under the hood. From what I've seen so far, I'm not going to be impressed with the revised stock UI at all. In fact, I like the old UI much more (it might of course change over time as I get used to the new look). On the other hand, I'm using HTC Sense right now, which makes the revised UI redundant for me anyway, and I expect HTC to stick with Sense for the time being. Other manufacturers have their own UI too...
I'd be happy if 2.3 were just the same as 2.2 on feature level, but more efficient. Because even though I am impressed with what 2.2 stock phones are capable of doing right now, better battery life is always a good thing.

/rant/ said:
Well, I hope that there will be some significant improvement under the hood. From what I've seen so far, I'm not going to be impressed with the revised stock UI at all. In fact, I like the old UI much more (it might of course change over time as I get used to the new look). On the other hand, I'm using HTC Sense right now, which makes the revised UI redundant for me anyway, and I expect HTC to stick with Sense for the time being. Other manufacturers have their own UI too...
I'd be happy if 2.3 were just the same as 2.2 on feature level, but more efficient. Because even though I am impressed with what 2.2 stock phones are capable of doing right now, better battery life is always a good thing.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Google should dedicate one release per version chiefly to combatting issues with efficiency, speed, battery life, removing deprecated components, and other optimizations - with adding features being on the backburner.
That will at least allow manufacturers to deliver one update to fix known issues on handsets and make them work *better* in a timely fashion without spending 4-6 months reinventing the wheel and reintegrating everything into yet another release.
Also, I don't really blame the manufacturers. Android has some deep-rooted issues when it comes to the user interface and the only way to make it attractive to a majority of people is to make some deeprooted changes.

I personally think that android 2.2 (froyo) actually has a pretty good UI. Coming from an iPhone, I find the squared-off corners and minimalistic (moreso than the iphone, amazingly) UI elements a LOT more aesthetically appealing. I do dislike the non-support for full hardware acceleration and the non-skinned dock, but I suppose that that's a non-issue. Hopefully 2.3 or 4.0 will update the UI, but as it stands I'm not THAT bored of it (granted I've only had my Epic for a month, but still) so if google doesn't it's fine. I really, really, really want hardware acceleration though.

Android 2.3 is really a fail!
I just downloaded a android 2.3 SDK and tested my app, I disappointed very much about it. It's UI is so ugly than 2.2 and before, especially TabWidget style and black notification bar.
I think Google is going towards a wrong road just like Microsoft, and android is not as hopeful as before. Maybe when a company grow great enough, they must be going down...
The problem is, android is not windows yet, if they continue to wrong, they would be dying.

I do not really know what sets 2.3 apart from 2.2, except colour icons for call, programs, and web. My notification bar is a dark grey, so a black one really wouldn't affect me. I never heard of TabWidget.
For me, when I got Stock 2.2, I added on a fake HTC clock, a nice calendar that I'll never use, and have been looking for some other nice apps to throw on my home screens. It looks beautiful. I thought the point of Android was to be customizational? And so far, my Android phone is very much what I wanted it to be. So how could 2.3 radically change that?
I do think we should have more customization options, but it's amazingly more open and freeing than my old Windows Mobile phone with the earliest of Sense on it (HTC Touch Pro)

angingrich said:
I think the major UI overhaul that was planned for Gbread was pushed back to Honeycomb. I'm not sure if this is because of the timing of the hire of Duarte (as in, maybe the UI was halfway there, they hired Duarte, and he scrapped it), or because they just didn't think they had time to implement it.
Either way, I think the major changes to Gingerbread will be under its skin... everyone's just focusing on the UI because that was probably the biggest touted change. My prediction is that we'll see better utilization of hardware, and thus improved efficiency... plus a number of new (but minor) features.
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
I second this thought. The UI is a little better, but nothing major. Most of the hype I think was just that...hype with no real information from anyone except what they HOPED would be.
I assume...ASSUME...that before 3.0 comes out, we may see a 2.3.x that will include a more substantial UI update. Or it may jump up to 2.4 or 2.5 for the UI. Not sure how major or Minor Google considers a UI upgrade.
2.3, as we know now, was mainly meant to improve the underlying stuff and to implement the NFC. 3.0 is SUPPOSE to be an update to make android better support tablets (is that official? I'm honestly not sure if Google has officially said that yet), so if that's true then I suspect we'll see one more iteration of the 2.x before 3.0 to give us the UI upgrade that MANY was hoping for.
All that is just a theory though, we may move straight from 2.3 to 3.0 and Google may separate android then with 2 version. 3.0P and 3.0T (That's Phone and Tablet). Who knows, most we can do is wait and see. Though I do imagine at some point they will have a division of the OS for the Tablet and one for the Phone. Same features and all, just optimized for one or the other.

3.0 is nothing like what we've seen before. Its amazing.

I still havent got an update yet.

Icecream Sandwich - Leaked photos

Just a few photos and some updates
http://rootzwiki.com/content.php?r=221-Ice-Cream-Sandwich-Pics-RootzWiki-Exclusive
http://www.androidpolice.com/2011/08/11/exclusive-leak-first-android-ice-cream-sandwich-screenshots-plus-more-ics-details/

Oh god yes. And they are using Cyanogen colours as their inspiration. Who is leading who?

cannot wait to get it on my SGS2

It looks great, i expected everything would be gray/black themed like the new Market. Can't wait to see more. Also wondering the performence of the ICS.

ams84 said:
cannot wait to get it on my SGS2
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Hopefully we can by the end of the year if a fall release happens as expected

Blue theme, they wanna degrade AMOLED based displays that fast I guess..
Mostly UI changes - many older devices (< 1 year old) should be able to run it
Click to expand...
Click to collapse
Err what? So nothing really major in 4.0 ?

Well, I am skeptical about these pictures.
On Google IO a "state of the art" UI was promised, but all I can see is the same look Gingerbread had, but with blue elements.
If I recall right, on IO the Google-Representative said they are "AIMING for a Q4 release", not "it WILL BE RELEASED Q4".
I don't think ICS is anywhere close to release at this moment. And even if it will be released Q4, which I highly doubt, then only on the Nexus Prime, the rest of the Nexus family, not to speak of non-Nexus phones, will follow in 2012.
I expect to get ICS on my GS2 around april to may 2012.

Dammit Google just because you made the statusbar icons blue doesnt mean u should make all the icons blue! !
Sent from my GT-I9100 using XDA Premium App

Looks like the leaked photos from same guy.

Fake.
Truly hideous.
Clearly fake.

I hope they are fake (though the sites claims they are 100%) legit. Hardly looks like the total UI overhaul they promised.

Why is this under galaxy s 2? And this won't be on gs2, If it is, it will mainly be TouchGay, no AOSP. This is the picture of a nexus s...and they said it would be gingerbread and honeycomb, it is. Looks like all the themselves for sensation, nothings changed, just coloring and looks more confusing.
Sent from my HTC Sensation 4G

Cant be ice cream sandwich. Pretty much the same as gingerbread.
If it is though,,... I and many would be greatly disappointed.

Touchwiz is cool stop being mean.

For those commenting, you do realise that even the leaker stated this is a very early build. Obviously it looks like GB, it makes sense that ICS would be built upon the GB platform, therefore early builds will clearly look like a tweaked GB rom.

Firstly I know the guy who provided us with the photos and he is the same guy who gave us screenshots of Gingerbread before it's release and they turned out to be 100% real.
Secondly ICS is not going to look that different from Gingerbread, but it will act differently.
You can see already that the notifications bar has changed a bit, the market has now changed (and available to all) music app has changed (available to all) and in the screenshot you can see the new widget page which is similar to honeycomb and the app switcher on the home screen again similar to honeycomb. The rest of the UI will look roughly the same as we expect as it works well on a phone.
One thing that will change is the way the UI and apps respond when the phone is in landscape. It will act more like a tablet when in landscape and more like a phone when in portrait.
Just wait for more information to come out and you will see that although it looks similar it will in-fact work completely differently.

well damn it google. they should have make a more beautiful AOSP theme rather than having themers making lot more work than them, which is beautifully done. for out the box UI, Android actually failed that. Sense is the most customized ones, though every version looks the same. I love how the updates from google make things work differently, but please~~ the UI~~ not everyone can customize and have the creativity, so make a beautiful one damn it google.

thoughts/excitment about ICS?

Just wondering what you fellow G2/DZ owners think about the upcoming android release "Ice cream sandwich". what features or changes are you excited about? do you reckon cyanogen team will migrate to it for our devices? and can our devices even effeciently run it?
i for one am always excited about any improvements to android, seeing it come so far has been incredible and i hope it continues to expand and prosper while still maintaining the performance and complexity weve come to adore as modders/hax0rs.
please share
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I'm assuming you've seen the engadget video of the leaked software? I know it's just a visual eyecandy thing but I'm actually looking forward to the screen rotation animations, for one. The lockscreen looks like it is similar to a MIUI circle lockscreen where you can unlock to different app shortcuts. Just looking forward to something new in general I guess, heh. If it was running on a Nexus S, I'm 100% it will work just fine for us, too.

i think that engadget video cant be faker, cmon a lucky guy from ebay?? hahaha yeah right reminds me of the iphone prototypes found in a bar a while ago
i think its just a very nice cooked ROM, also compare it to the leaked pictures and it doesnt look the same
about ICS taken from cyanogen i think it is gonna be ported by the team as theyve been doing with every previous version of android, so expect CM8! also i think were not gonna have any problems running it on our G2s since AOSP are not that heavy and i think ICS is not gonna be that heavy either, at least not like a sense ROM

As stated above. I'm mainly looking forward to rotation animation and speed increases.
As far as I'm concerned each new stock version has had a similar speed to the previous modded version. So I'm not expecting much in the way of speed..... yet.
Here's hoping there's plenty new toys.
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Visual improvements are welcome, but I'm looking forward to the under the hood improvements. And hopefully being able to run honeycomb apps.
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Will it be released ota for desire z devices.
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JDogg1329 said:
Will it be released ota for desire z devices.
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Doubt it. On my 5th android handset from 3 manufacturers and resigned to the fact that I need custom roms to get the latest/fastest software.
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Frankly, it looks horrendous - especially from a user experience point of view. As a longtime fan of Android, it boggles my mind that the software is so half-baked.

I'm not exactly blown out of the water by it. It looks like they took some of the Honeycomb design language and ported it over as a skin ontop of Gingerbread. I really hope that its more than that, but we'll have to see. 2.2 to 2.3 was a lot of polish and cleaning up with some new UI elements, so I hope 4.0 is a big leap.
I hope that we see performance gains, new features, and more stability/usability. I liked what they did in Honeycomb from a UI and smoothness PoV, but I'm not sure how that will translate to the smaller screen. The big test will be how it performs and looks on the next Nexus device, as that is the benchmark or platform example of what they want it to look like. I don't think the vision of ICS is complete when its running on a Nexus S.

Pickx said:
Frankly, it looks horrendous - especially from a user experience point of view. As a longtime fan of Android, it boggles my mind that the software is so half-baked.
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I disagree, but I don't think anybody can judge until we officially see them demonstrate it.
If that leak was real, it's basically some honeycomb elements and a bluish neon theme. Not really a huge stretch from what we have currently. And face it, Android still isn't as user friendly as it could be. ICS needs to be huge if they want to stay ahead of WP7 and compete with iOS.
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Nospin said:
And face it, Android still isn't as user friendly as it could be. ICS needs to be huge if they want to stay ahead of WP7 and compete with iOS.
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I agree with that. They really need to knock it out of the park. Not necessarily with features (they already have a ton of features) but with user experience and consistency/reliability. iOS and WP7 knock it out of the park on user experience whether you care to admit it or not. If Android can smooth out a lot of the rough edges and issues I'm sure it'll give a huge boost to sales.

The problem is that high end Androids still lag. Now I'm willing to place a lot of blame on oems, but Android is still too power and resource hungry. That NEEDS to be addressed here.
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Nospin said:
The problem is that high end Androids still lag. Now I'm willing to place a lot of blame on oems, but Android is still too power and resource hungry. That NEEDS to be addressed here.
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Funny...my g2 lasts twice as long on battery as my lender iphone 4, though I'm all for power and battery improvements who knows what android can achieve.
As for top end androids lagging, I'm assuming your referring to stock devices. In which bloatware can be blamed for 99% of that lag. For a one year old device my g2 blows every one of my friends devices out of the water, especially when everyone is out somewhere and we need to 'google' something, my wp7 friends never find the right info, and the iphone guys/gurls usually never get to the search fast enough lol. THIS is what I believe sets us apart, the speed in which I can fire a google search, check google maps, etc leaves all my non google friends gawking at how easy my droid is.
I'm hoping for a little bit of user experience improvement, but mostly if they can squeeze out even more performance and power saving, it'll truly set us apart from the competition.
Edit: IMO
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Iphone5 comes out
G-Infinity is a quadcore with qwerty and invisibility cloaking option, (just in case) also has a mini lightsaber incase you know, ..
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To be honest, I don't like the way Android development is going. I mean, phones keep getting more and more powerful, we have dual-core CPUs and lots of RAM, but the OS doesn't really feel faster and the user experience is more or less the same.
What I'd like to see in ICS is a smoother feeling, especially faster launching apps and making better use of the hardware (the second one is difficult with all the diferent phones out there).
Also, some more UI customization would be welcome. For example, changing the battery icon (or the whole status bar icon set) without root or cooking a custom rom, or making my own tabs in the app drawer.

costipl said:
To be honest, I don't like the way Android development is going. I mean, phones keep getting more and more powerful, we have dual-core CPUs and lots of RAM, but the OS doesn't really feel faster and the user experience is more or less the same.
What I'd like to see in ICS is a smoother feeling, especially faster launching apps and making better use of the hardware (the second one is difficult with all the diferent phones out there).
Also, some more UI customization would be welcome. For example, changing the battery icon (or the whole status bar icon set) without root or cooking a custom rom, or making my own tabs in the app drawer.
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I also agree, the way I see it the more powerful they get the more battery hungry they will be, though I could be wrong. Cm7 runs pretty damn smooth at 800mhz stock speed so I mean it is possible to optimize the os for a single core. But I mean looking back from donut to ginger, the os does feel not only bigger but also runs smoother in my opinion. But again it could be because the hardware has improved so much as well.
Given the fact the iphone 4s specs were just announced, and don't really wow anyone, I'm hoping oct 11th and ICS blow everything out of the water. Google is most definetly capable of showing some innovation, so my fingers are crossed that ICS is everything we want! Would also prove perfect timing to make even more gain in the mobile os department. They also need to keep up the sick advertising on tv, lord knows the commercials make my iphail pals jealous!
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i'm with the people saying that they hope ICS brings with it better performance and nicer User Experience. rooting really barely helps. don't get me wrong its fun having all these choices and flashing roms and whatnot. but none of them really make the phone work like it should. i still have lag. i still have crashes. full wipes do nothing. yea it runs AMAZING for a day. maybe a week on a really good rom. and then things start lagging. it's getting harder and harder to defend. "no you don't get it, with android you get choice and iphone sucks" ... as my friend's iphone works perfectly pretty much 100% of the time. blah. come on ICS. wow me. please!