Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich

Prepare for Ice Cream Sandwich

SEE new lock screen & home screen
LEARN new app and interface interaction
DISCOVER new ways to customise
REVIEW fun & helpful new features

Features

OVERVIEW OF CHANGES

The Ice Cream Sandwich upgrade makes your Android-powered Motorola smartphone even better and more powerful than ever. Explore this page to see all the new features and improvements and to prepare for the upgrade.

LOCK SCREEN AND HOME SCREEN

The lock screen lets you do more without unlocking. Unlock directly to the camera, text messaging, phone dialer, or home screen—even manage music tracks and more.* The new Favourites tray remains visible on every home screen, provides 4 customisable links to apps and contains the All Apps icon for access to all your apps and widgets.
*Note: Enterprise users with required PINs/passwords may not be able to use direct access features.

WIDGET INFO

The portfolio of widgets has been updated to be both comprehensive and streamlined. Watch the video above to see the new widgets, changes to existing widgets, and removed widgets.

CUSTOMISING THE HOME SCREEN

Customising your device is easy using the new All Apps screen. This screen lets you launch apps—as well as select and place widgets and apps—on your home screen.

FOLDERS

New home screen folders let you group your apps and shortcuts logically, just by dragging one onto another. Organise similar shortcuts into a single icon on your home screen or in your Favourites tray.

PEOPLE & PHONE APPS

The new People app, which replaces Contacts, offers rich profile information, large pictures, phone numbers, addresses and accounts, status updates, and integration with social networks. The Phone app is now specialized for making calls and listing your contacts that have phone number.

BROWSER

The new Browser offers dramatically improved page loading, tabbed browsing, offline reading, desktop mode, and the ability to sync bookmarks with your desktop Chrome browser. Use the visual bookmark and history tabs to quickly navigate to your favourite sites.

BUTTONS & ICONS

Android 4.0 uses new icons to access menus, view app settings, send and archive emails, and many other tasks. See the new icons here and learn the new functions of your home and menu buttons to help you navigate the new interface.

WEBTOP

Using a new Android 4.0 interface, webtop now offers a more seamless transition from your phone with big screen optimisation, significantly improved email navigation, a more complete texting interface, and the ability to surf desktop versions of websites.

VOICE INPUT

A powerful new voice input engine shows dictation in real time. Talk continuously, pause and speak punctuation to compose emails, texts and more.

SETTINGS & NOTIFICATIONS

The settings menu has been re-organised into logical groupings, with controls for key settings right on the menu. The notification window provides new ways to reach settings and dismiss individual notifications. It’s even accessible from the lock screen.

FACE UNLOCK

Unlock your phone with your face instead of a PIN or a pattern. Face Unlock uses the device’s front-facing camera and state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to register your face during setup and then to recognize it again when unlocking the device.

SCREENSHOTS

You can now share what's on your screen more easily by taking screenshots. Hardware buttons let you snap a screenshot and store it locally. Afterward, you can view, edit, and share it just like any other photo.

DATA MANAGER

Manage your monthly costs by setting warning levels or limits on data usage. New, easy-to-read charts show total data usage by network type (mobile or Wi-Fi), as well as the data used by each running application.

EMAIL

The Email app now lets you quickly add recipients with improved auto-completion, create and store quick response emails, and search across folders and subfolders.

CAMERA

The Camera app includes new features including time-lapse video recording and the ability to take snapshots just by pressing the capture button during video recording. Physical volume keys on the device can now be set to act as the camera shutter button or to control the zoom.

SOCIAL NETWORKING

The social networking app and widget have been removed but you can still keep up with the latest posts and updates from your social networks through each network’s own app and widget.