Minimum Hardware Requirements for Android Icecream Sandwich

Welcome to Android 4.0!

Android 4.0 delivers a refined, unified UI for phones and tablets and introduces innovative features for users and developers. This certificate provides a glimpse of the many new features and technologies that make Android iv.0 unproblematic, beautiful, and beyond smart.

• Android 4.0 for Users
• Android 4.0 for Developers

Android iv.0 for Users

Uncomplicated, beautiful, beyond smart

Android 4.0 builds on the things people love nigh about Android — piece of cake multitasking, rich notifications, customizable domicile screens, resizable widgets, and deep interactivity — and adds powerful new ways of communicating and sharing.

Refined, evolved UI

Focused on bringing the power of Android to the surface, Android 4.0 makes mutual deportment more than visible and lets users navigate with unproblematic, intuitive gestures. Refined animations and feedback throughout the system make interactions engaging and interesting. An entirely new typeface optimized for high-resolution screens improves readability and brings a polished, modern feel to the user interface.

Virtual buttons in the Organization Bar let users navigate instantly to Dorsum, Dwelling, and Contempo Apps. The System Bar and virtual buttons are present beyond all apps, but can be dimmed by applications for full-screen viewing. Users can access each application's contextual options in the Activeness Bar, displayed at the top (and sometimes also at the bottom) of the screen.

Multitasking is a key forcefulness of Android and it'south made even easier and more visual on Android 4.0. The Recent Apps push button lets users jump instantly from ane task to some other using the list in the System Bar. The list pops up to show thumbnail images of apps used recently — tapping a thumbnail switches to the app.

The Recent Apps listing makes multitasking uncomplicated.

Spring to the camera or run into notifications without unlocking.

For incoming calls, you tin can respond instantly by text.

Rich and interactive notifications let users go on in abiding touch with incoming messages, play music tracks, see real-time updates from apps, and much more. On smaller-screen devices, notifications appear at the top of the screen, while on larger-screen devices they appear in the Organization Bar.

The All Apps launcher (left) and resizable widgets (right) give you apps and rich content from the home screen.

Home screen folders and favorites tray

New abode screen folders offer a new manner for users to group their apps and shortcuts logically, only by dragging i onto another. Also, in All Apps launcher, users can now only drag an app to get information about it or immediately uninstall it, or disable a pre-installed app.

On smaller-screen devices, the home screen now includes a customizable favorites tray visible from all habitation screens. Users can drag apps, shortcuts, folders, and other priority items in or out of the favorites tray for instant access from any home screen.

Resizable widgets

Home screens in Android 4.0 are designed to exist content-rich and customizable. Users can practice much more than add shortcuts — they can embed live application content straight through interactive widgets. Widgets let users check email, flip through a calendar, play music, check social streams, and more — right from the habitation screen, without having to launch apps. Widgets are resizable, so users can expand them to show more content or shrink them to save space.

New lock screen deportment

The lock screens now let users do more without unlocking. From the slide lock screen, users can jump directly to the photographic camera for a movie or pull down the notifications window to check for letters. When listening to music, users can even manage music tracks and see album art.

Quick responses for incoming calls

When an incoming telephone call arrives, users can at present speedily respond by text message, without needing to pick up the call or unlock the device. On the incoming call screen, users just slide a control to see a list of text responses and and then tap to send and end the call. Users can add their own responses and manage the listing from the Settings app.

Swipe to dismiss notifications, tasks, and browser tabs

Android 4.0 makes managing notifications, recent apps, and browser tabs even easier. Users tin at present dismiss individual notifications, apps from the Recent Apps list, and browser tabs with a elementary swipe of a finger.

A spell-checker lets you find errors and fix them faster.

A powerful vocalism input engine lets yous dictate continously.

Improved text input and spell-checking

The soft keyboard in Android iv.0 makes text input even faster and more accurate. Error correction and word suggestion are improved through a new set of default dictionaries and more accurate heuristics for handling cases such as double-typed characters, skipped letters, and omitted spaces. Word suggestion is also improved and the proffer strip is simplified to bear witness only three words at a time.

To fix misspelled words more hands, Android 4.0 adds a spell-checker that locates and underlines errors and suggests replacement words. With ane tap, users can cull from multiple spelling suggestions, delete a word, or add information technology to the lexicon. Users can even tap to meet replacement suggestions for words that are spelled correctly. For specialized features or boosted languages, users can now download and install third-party dictionaries, spell-checkers, and other text services.

Powerful voice input engine

Android iv.0 introduces a powerful new vocalism input engine that offers a continuous "open microphone" feel and streaming voice recognition. The new voice input engine lets users dictate the text they desire, for as long as they want, using the language they want. Users can speak continously for a prolonged fourth dimension, fifty-fifty pausing for intervals if needed, and dictate punctuation to create correct sentences. Equally the vocalisation input engine enters text, it underlines possible dictation errors in gray. Subsequently dictating, users can tap the underlined words to quickly supplant them from a list of suggestions.

Data usage controls let you lot monitor total usage by network type and application and so set limits if needed.

Command over network information

Mobile devices can make extensive utilize of network data for streaming content, synchronizing information, downloading apps, and more than. To meet the needs of users with tiered or metered information plans, Android 4.0 adds new controls for managing network data usage.

In the Settings app, colorful charts show the total data usage on each network blazon (mobile or Wi-Fi), every bit well as amount of data used past each running application. Based on their data plans, users can optionally prepare warning levels or hard limits on data usage or disable mobile data altogether. Users tin also manage the background data used by individual applications as needed.

Designed for accessibility

A diversity of new features greatly raise the accessibility of Android 4.0 for users who are bullheaded or have visual impairments. Most of import is a new explore-by-touch mode that lets users navigate without having to see the screen. Touching the screen once triggers audible feedback that identifies the UI component beneath; a second touch in the same component activates information technology with a full touch event. The new mode is especially important to support users on new devices that use virtual buttons in the System Bar, rather than defended hardware buttons or trackballs. As well, standard apps are updated to offering an improved accessibility experience. The Browser supports a script-based screen reader for reading favorite web content and navigating sites. For improved readability, users tin can also increase the default font size used beyond the system.

The accessibility experience begins at first setup — a simple touch gesture during setup (clockwise square from upper left) activates all accessibility features and loads a setup tutorial. In one case accessibility features are active, everything visible on the screen can be spoken aloud past the standard screen reader.

Advice and sharing

Contacts and profiles are integrated across apps and social networks, for a consistent, personal experience everywhere — from incoming calls to emails.

Designed for the mode people live, Android 4.0 integrates rich social communication and sharing touchpoints beyond the arrangement, making it easy to talk, electronic mail, text, and share.

People and profiles

Throughout the system, a user's social groups, profiles, and contacts are linked together and integrated for like shooting fish in a barrel accessibility. At the center is a new People app that offers richer contour information, including a large contour picture, phone numbers, addresses and accounts, status updates, events, stream items, and a new button for connecting on integrated social networks.

The user's own contact information is stored in a new "Me" contour, allowing easier sharing with apps and people. All of the user's integrated contacts are displayed in an easy to manage listing, including controls over which contacts are shown from any integrated account or social network. Wherever the user navigates beyond the system, tapping a profile photo displays Quick Contacts, with large profile pictures, shortcuts to telephone numbers, text messaging, and more than.

Unified agenda, visual voicemail

To help organize appointments and events, an updated Calendar app brings together personal, work, school, and social agendas. With user permission, other applications tin can contribute events to the calendar and manage reminders, for an integrated view across multiple calendar providers. The app is redesigned to permit users manage events more easily. Calendars are colour-coded and users can swipe left or correct to alter dates and pinch to zoom in or out agendas.

In the phone app, a new visual voicemail features integrates incoming messages, voice transcriptions, and sound files from 1 or more providers. Third-political party applications tin can integrate with the Phone app to add their own voice messages, transcriptions, and more to the visual voicemail inbox.

Capture the pic you want, edit, and share instantly.

Rich and versatile camera capabilities

The Camera app includes many new features that permit users capture special moments with great photos and videos. After capturing images, they tin can edit and share them hands with friends.

When taking pictures, continuous focus, nil shutter lag exposure, and decreased shot-to-shot speed help capture clear, precise images. Stabilized image zoom lets users etch photos and video in the way they want, including while video is recording. For new flexibility and convenience while shooting video, users tin can now take snapshots at full video resolution just by borer the screen as video continues to record.

To brand it easier to take corking pictures of people, congenital-in face detection locates faces in the frame and automatically sets focus. For more control, users tin tap to focus anywhere in the preview image.

For capturing larger scenes, the Camera introduces a unmarried-motility panorama mode. In this way, the user starts an exposure and so slowly turns the Camera to cover as wide a perspective as needed. The Camera assembles the full range of continuous imagery into a single panoramic photo.

Later on taking a picture or video, users can rapidly share it by email, text bulletin, bluetooth, social networks, and more, merely by tapping the thumbnail in the photographic camera controls.

A Photo Gallery widget on the abode screen.

Redesigned Gallery app with photo editor

The Gallery app now makes information technology easier to manage, show, and share photos and videos. For managing collections, a redesigned album layout shows many more albums and offers larger thumbnails. In that location are many ways to sort albums, including by time, location, people, and tags. To help pictures look their best, the Gallery now includes a powerful photograph editor. Users can ingather and rotate pictures, gear up levels, remove ruddy eyes, add furnishings, and much more. After retouching, users tin select ane or multiple pictures or videos to share instantly over email, text messaging, bluetooth, social networks, or other apps.

An improved Picture show Gallery widget lets users look at pictures directly on their home screen. The widget tin can brandish pictures from a selected album, shuffle pictures from all albums, or show a single paradigm. After calculation the widget to the habitation screen, users can picture through the photo stacks to locate the image they want, then tap to load it in Gallery.

Alive Furnishings let you change backgrounds and use Silly Faces during video.

Alive Effects for transforming video

Live Effects is a drove of graphical transformations that add together interest and fun to videos captured in the Camera app. For case, users can modify the background behind them to whatever stock or custom image, for merely the right setting when shooting video. Likewise available for video is Lightheaded Faces, a prepare of morphing effects that use state-of-the-art face recognition and GPU filters to transform facial features. For example, you lot can employ effects such as pocket-sized eyes, big rima oris, big nose, face up squeeze, and more than. Outside of the Camera app, Alive Furnishings is available during video conversation in the Google Talk app.

Snapping a screenshot.

Sharing with screenshots

Users tin can at present share what'due south on their screens more easily by taking screenshots. Hardware buttons let them snap a screenshot and store information technology locally. Afterward, they can view, edit, and share the screen shot in Gallery or a similar app.

Cloud-connected experience

The Browser tabs bill of fare (left) lets you lot rapidly switch browser tabs. The options carte (right) gives you new ways to manage your browsing experience.

Benchmark comparisons of Android Browser.

Android has always been cloud-connected, letting users scan the spider web and sync photos, apps, games, email, and contacts — wherever they are and across all of their devices. Android 4.0 adds new browsing and email capabilities to let users take even more with them and keep communication organized.

Powerful spider web browsing

The Android Browser offers an feel that's every bit rich and convenient as a desktop browser. It lets users instantly sync and manage Google Chrome bookmarks from all of their accounts, spring to their favorite content faster, and even save it for reading later on in case in that location's no network available.

To get the most out of web content, users can now request full desktop versions of web sites, rather than their mobile versions. Users tin can set their preference for web sites separately for each browser tab. For longer content, users tin save a copy for offline reading. To find and open saved pages, users tin can browse a visual listing that'south included with browser bookmarks and history. For ameliorate readability and accessibility, users can increment the browser'southward zoom levels and override the system default text sizes.

Beyond all types of content, the Android Browser offers dramatically improved page rendering functioning through updated versions of the WebKit cadre and the V8 Crankshaft compilation engine for JavaScript. In benchmarks run on a Nexus S device, the Android iv.0 browser showed an comeback of nearly 220% over the Android ii.3 browser in the V8 Benchmark Suite and more than 35% in the SunSpider 9.ane JavaScript Benchmark. When run on a Galaxy Nexus device, the Android iv.0 browser showed improvement of almost 550% in the V8 benchmark and nearly 70% in the SunSpider benchmark.

Improved email

In Android four.0, email is easier to send, read, and manage. For composing email, improved motorcar-completion of recipients helps with finding and adding frequent contacts more chop-chop. For easier input of frequent text, users can now create quick responses and store them in the app, then enter them from a convenient menu when composing. When replying to a message, users can now toggle the message to Reply All and Frontward without changing screens.

For easier browsing across accounts and labels, the app adds an integrated carte du jour of accounts and contempo labels. To help users locate and organize IMAP and Exchange email, the Email app now supports nested postal service subfolders, each with synchronization rules. Users tin likewise search across folders on the server, for faster results.

For enterprises, the Electronic mail app supports EAS v14. It supports EAS certificate authentication, provides ABQ strings for device type and mode, and allows automatic sync to be disabled while roaming. Administrators can as well limit attachment size or disable attachments.

For keeping runway of incoming email more easily, a resizable Email widget lets users flick through recent electronic mail right from the home screen, then jump into the Email app to compose or respond.

Android Axle lets users share what they are using with a unmarried tap.

Innovation

Android is continously driving innovation forward, pushing the boundaries of communication and sharing with new capabilities and interactions.

Android Beam for NFC-based sharing

Android Beam is an innovative, convenient characteristic for sharing across ii NFC-enabled devices, It lets people instantly exchange favorite apps, contacts, music, videos — almost anything. It'south incredibly elementary and user-friendly to use — in that location's no menu to open, application to launch, or pairing needed. Merely impact ane Android-powered phone to some other, and so tap to send.

For sharing apps, Android Beam pushes a link to the app's details folio in Google Play. On the other device, the Google Play customer app launches and loads the details page, for easy downloading of the app. Individual apps can build on Android Beam to add together other types of interactions, such equally passing game scores, initiating a multiplayer game or chat, and more than.

Face recognition lets you lot unlock your phone with your face.

Face Unlock

Android 4.0 introduces a completely new approach to securing a device, making each person'southward device even more than personal — Face Unlock is a new screen-lock selection that lets users unlock their devices with their faces. It takes reward of the device front end-facing camera and state-of-the-art facial recognition technology to annals a face up during setup and then to recognize information technology again when unlocking the device. Users just agree their devices in front of their faces to unlock, or apply a backup Pin or pattern.

Wi-Fi P2P and Bluetooth HDP

Support for Wi-Fi peer-to-peer (P2P) lets users connect straight to nearby peer devices over Wi-Fi, for more reliable, higher-speed advice (in compliance with the Wi-Fi Alliance'south Wi-Fi Direct™ certification plan). No internet connection or tethering is needed. Through third-political party apps, users tin can connect to compatible devices to accept advantage of new features such as instant sharing of files, photos, or other media; streaming video or audio from some other device; or connecting to compatible printers or other devices.

Android four.0 as well introduces built-in support for connecting to Bluetooth Health Device Profile (HDP) devices. With support from third-party apps, users can connect to wireless medical devices and sensors in hospitals, fitness centers, homes, and elsewhere.

New Developer Features

Unified UI framework for phones, tablets, and more than

Android 4.0 brings a unified UI framework that lets developers create elegant, innovative apps for phones, tablets, and more. It includes all of the familiar Android iii.x interface elements and APIs — fragments, content loaders, Action Bar, rich notifications, resizable home screen widgets, and more — as well equally new elements and APIs.

For developers, the unified UI framework in Android 4.0 means new UI tools, consequent pattern practices, simplified code and resources, and streamlined development beyond the range of Android-powered devices.

Key Honeycomb programmer features, now for phones too

Core UI

• Fragments and content loaders
• Resizeable home screen widgets
• Rich notifications
• Multi-pick, drag-drop, clipboard
• Improved screen-support API
• Hardware-accelerated second graphics

Graphics and animation

• Property-based blitheness
• Renderscript 3D graphics

Media and connectivity

• HTTP Alive streaming
• Bluetooth A2DP and HSP devices
• Back up for RTP
• MTP/PTP file transfer
• DRM framework
• Input from keyboard, mouse, gamepad, joystick

Enterprise

• Full device encryption
• DPM policies for encrypted storage and passwords

Advice and sharing

Android 4.0 extends social and sharing features to any awarding on the device. Applications can integrate contacts, profile data, stream items, and agenda events from any of the user'due south activities or social networks.

Social API

A shared social provider and API provide a new unified store for contacts, profile data, stream items, and photos. Whatsoever app or social network with user permission can contribute raw contacts and brand them accessible to other apps and networks. Applications with user permission can also read contour data from the provider and brandish it in their applications.

The social API lets applications store standard contact data as well equally new types of content for any given contact, including large contour photos, stream items, and recent activity feedback. Recent activity feedback is a standard manner for applications to "tag" a contact with common activeness, such equally when the user calls the contact or sends an email or SMS bulletin. The social provider uses the contempo action feedback equally a new point in ranking, such as for name auto-complete, to keep the most relevant contacts ranked closest to the top.

Applications can also allow users set up a social connection to a contact from the People app. When the user touches Add together Connexion in a contact, the app sends a public intent that other apps tin can handle, displaying any UI needed to create the social connexion.

Edifice on the social API, developers can add powerful new interactions that span multiple social networks and contacts sources.

Calendar API

A shared calendar content provider and framework API get in easier for developers to add calendar services to their apps.

With user permission, any application can add events to the shared database and manage dates, attendees, alerts, and reminders. Applications tin can also read entries from the database, including events contributed by other applications, and handle the brandish of issue alerts and reminders. Using the agenda provider, applications tin can take advantage of outcome data sourced from a variety of apps and protocols, to offer innovative means of viewing and managing a user's events. Apps tin besides utilise calendar data to improve the relevance of their other content.

For lighter-weight access to calendar services, the Calendar app defines a set of public Intents for creating, viewing, and editing events. Rather than needing to implement a calendar UI and integrate straight with the calendar provider, applications can simply broadcast agenda Intents. When the Calendar app receives the Intents, it launches the appropriate UI and stores any event data entered. Using calendar Intents, for example, apps tin can permit users add events directly from lists, dialogs, or habitation screen widgets, such every bit for making restaurant reservations or booking time with friends.

Visual voicemail API

A shared Voicemail provider and API permit developers to build applications that contribute to a unified voicemail store. Voicemails are displayed and played in the call log tab of the platform's Phone app.

Android Beam

Android Beam is an NFC-based feature that lets users instantly share information about the apps they are using, just by touching 2 NFC-enabled phones together. When the devices are in range — inside a few centimeters — the system sets upward an NFC connection and displays a sharing UI. To share whatever they are viewing with the other device, users just touch the screen.

For developers, Android Beam is a new way of triggering near any type of proximity-based interaction. For example, it can let users instantly substitution contacts, set up multiplayer gaming, join a chat or video call, share a photo or video, and more. The system provides the low-level NFC support and the sharing UI, while the foreground app provides lightweight information to transfer to the other device. Developers have complete command over the data that is shared and how it is handled, then near any interaction is possible. For larger payloads, developers tin can even use Android Beam to initiate a connection and transfer the data over Bluetooth, without the need for user-visible pairing.

Fifty-fifty if developers do not add custom interactions based on Android Beam they can still do good from it being deeply integrated into Android. By default the system shares the app'due south Google Play URL, so it's easy for the user to download or purchase the app right away.

Modular sharing widget

The UI framework includes a new widget, ShareActionProvider, that lets developers rapidly embed standard share functionality and UI in the Action Bar of their applications. Developers simply add together ShareActionProvider to the carte and fix an intent that describes the desired sharing action. The system handles the rest, building up the listing of applications that can handle the share intent and dispatching the intent when the user chooses from the bill of fare.

New media capabilities

Low-level streaming multimedia

Android 4.0 provides a direct, efficient path for low-level streaming multimedia. The new path is ideal for applications that need to maintain complete command over media information before passing it to the platform for presentation. For example, media applications tin now retrieve data from any source, utilise proprietary encryption/decryption, and then send the data to the platform for brandish.

Applications can now ship processed data to the platform as a multiplexed stream of sound/video content in MPEG-2 transport stream format. The platform de-muxes, decodes, and renders the content. The audio rail is rendered to the active audio device, while the video runway is rendered to either a Surface or a SurfaceTexture. When rendering to a SurfaceTexture, the awarding can apply subsequent graphics effects to each frame using OpenGL.

To support this low-level streaming, the platform introduces a new native API based on Khronos OpenMAX AL 1.0.i. The API is implemented on the aforementioned underlying services equally the platform's existing OpenSL ES API, then developers can make use of both APIs together if needed. Tools support for low-level streaming multimedia will be available in an upcoming release of the Android NDK.

New camera capabilities

Developers tin can take reward of a diverseness of new photographic camera features in Android iv.0. ZSL exposure, continuous focus, and image zoom let apps capture amend still and video images, including during video capture. Apps can even capture full-resolution snapshots while shooting video. Apps can now ready custom metering regions in a camera preview, so manage white residual and exposure dynamically for those regions. For easier focusing and paradigm processing, a face up-detection service identifies and tracks faces in a preview and returns their screen coordinates.

Media effects for transforming images and video

A set of high-performance transformation filters let developers apply rich effects to any image passed as an OpenGL ES 2.0 texture. Developers can accommodate colour levels and effulgence, change backgrounds, acuminate, crop, rotate, add lens distortion, and employ other effects. The transformations are processed past the GPU, and then they are fast enough for processing paradigm frames loaded from disk, camera, or video stream.

Audio remote controls

Android 4.0 adds a new audio remote command API that lets media applications integrate with playback controls that are displayed in a remote view. Media applications tin integrate with a remote music playback command that'due south built into in the platform's lock screen, allowing users to command vocal choice and playback without having to unlock and navigate to the music app.

Using the audio remote control API, whatsoever music or media app can annals to receive media push events from the remote command and then manage play state accordingly. The application can also supply metadata to the remote control, such as album art or image, play state, track number and clarification, duration, genre, and more.

New media codecs and containers

Android 4.0 adds support for boosted media types and containers to give developers access to the formats they need. For high-quality compressed images, the media framework adds back up for WebP content. For video, the framework now supports streaming VP8 content. For streaming multimedia, the framework supports HTTP Live streaming protocol version 3 and encoding of ADTS-independent AAC content. Additionally, developers can now use Matroska containers for Vorbis and VP8 content.

New types of connectivity

Wi-Fi P2P

Developers tin can use a framework API to discover and connect directly to nearby devices over a high-performance, secure Wi-Fi peer-to-peer (P2P) connectedness. No internet connection or hotspot is needed. Android's Wi-Fi P2P framework complies with the Wi-Fi Alliance'due south Wi-Fi Direct™ certification program.

Wi-Fi peer-to-peer (P2P) opens new opportunities for developers to add together innovative features to their applications. Applications tin use Wi-Fi P2P to share files, photos, or other media between devices or between a desktop computer and an Android-powered device. Applications could also use Wi-Fi P2P to stream media content from a peer device such equally a digital tv set or audio player, connect a group of users for gaming, print files, and more.

Bluetooth Wellness Device Profile (HDP)

Developers can at present build powerful medical applications that use Bluetooth to communicate with wireless devices and sensors in hospitals, fitness centers, homes, and elsewhere. Applications can collect and manage data from HDP source devices and transmit it to backend medical applications such equally records systems, information analysis services, and others.

Using a framework API, applications can employ Bluetooth to detect nearby devices, plant reliable or streaming information channels, and manage information manual. Applications tin can supply whatever IEEE 11073 Manager to retrieve and interpret health data from Continua-certified devices such as heart-rate monitors, blood meters, thermometers, and scales.

New UI components and capabilities

Layout enhancements

A new layout, GridLayout, improves the operation of Android applications by supporting flatter view hierarchies that are faster to layout and render. Considering hierarchies are flatter, developers can too manage alignments betwixt components that are visually related to each other even when they are not logically related, for precise control over application UI. GridLayout is also specifically designed to be configured by drag-and-drib design tools such every bit Android Studio.

OpenGL ES texture views

A new TextureView object lets developers directly integrate OpenGL ES textures equally rendering targets in a UI hierarchy. The object lets developers display and dispense OpenGL ES rendering only as they would a normal view object in the bureaucracy, including moving, transforming, and animative the view as needed. The TextureView object makes information technology piece of cake for developers to embed camera preview, decoded video, OpenGL game scenes, and more than. TextureView can be viewed as a more powerful version of the existing SurfaceView object, since it offers the same benefits of access to a GL rendering surface, with the added advantage of having that surface participate fully in the normal view bureaucracy.

Hardware-accelerated second cartoon

All Android-powered devices running Android 4.0 are required to support hardware-accelerated second drawing. Developers tin accept advantage of this to add great UI furnishings while maintaining optimal operation on loftier-resolution screens, even on phones. For example, developers tin can rely on accelerated scaling, rotation, and other 2D operations, too every bit accelerated UI components such as TextureView and compositing modes such as filtering, blending, and opacity.

New input types and text services

Stylus input, push back up, hover events

Android 4.0 includes total back up for stylus input events, including tilt and distance axes, force per unit area, and related motion event properties. To help applications distinguish motion events from unlike sources, the platform adds distinct tool types for stylus, finger, mouse, and eraser. For improved input from multi-button pointing devices, the platform now provides singled-out primary, secondary, and tertiary buttons, too as dorsum and frontward buttons. Hover-enter and hover-exit events are likewise added, for improved navigation and accessibility. Developers can build on these new input features to add together powerful interactions to their apps, such as precise cartoon and gesturing, handwriting and shape recognition, improved mouse input, and others.

Text services API for integrating spelling checkers

Android 4.0 lets applications query available text services such every bit dictionaries and spell checkers for word suggestions, corrections, and like data. The text services are external to the active IME, so developers tin can create and distribute dictionaries and suggestion engines that plug into the platform. When an application receives results from a text service — for example, word suggestions — it can display them in a dedicated suggestion popup window directly within the text view, rather than relying on the IME to display them.

Enhanced accessibility APIs

Android 4.0 adds new accessibility features and an enhanced API to let developers improve the user experience in their apps, peculiarly on devices that don't have hardware buttons. For accessibility services such as screen readers in particular, the platform offers new APIs to query window content, for easier navigation, better feedback, and richer user interfaces.

Accessibility API

To let applications manage interactions more finer when accessibility features are enabled, the platform adds accessibility events for explore-by-touch on mode, scrolling, and text selection. For these and other events, the platform can attach a new object called an accessibility record that provides actress information almost the event context.

Using the accessibility record and related APIs, applications can now access the view hierarchy associated with an outcome. Applications can query for key backdrop such as parent and child nodes, available states, supported actions, screen position, and more. Applications can also asking changes to certain properties to assist manage focus and selected land. For example, an accessibility service could apply these new capabilities to add convenient features such as screen-search by text.

Text-to-speech API

A new framework API lets developers write text-to-spoken communication engines and make them available to any app requesting TTS capabilities.

Efficient network usage

In Android 4.0, users tin can see how much network data their running apps are using. They can besides set limits on data usage past network type and disable groundwork data usage for specific applications. In this context, developers demand to design their apps to run efficiently and follow best practices for checking the network connection. Android 4.0 provides network APIs to let applications encounter those goals.

As users move between networks or gear up limits on network data, the platform lets applications query for connection type and availability. Developers can utilise this data to dynamically manage network requests to ensure the best experience for users. Developers can also build custom network and data-usage options into their apps, then expose them to users directly from Settings by ways of a new system Intent.

Security for apps and content

Secure direction of credentials

Android 4.0 makes information technology easier for applications to manage authentication and secure sessions. A new keychain API and underlying encrypted storage let applications store and recollect individual keys and their corresponding certificate chains. Any application can use the keychain API to install and store user certificates and CAs deeply.

Address Space Layout Randomization

Android 4.0 now provides address infinite layout randomization (ASLR) to assistance protect system and tertiary party applications from exploitation due to memory-management problems.

Enhancements for Enterprise

VPN customer API

Developers can at present build or extend their own VPN solutions on the platform using a new VPN API and underlying secure credential storage. With user permission, applications tin configure addresses and routing rules, process outgoing and incoming packets, and establish secure tunnels to a remote server. Enterprises tin also take reward of a standard VPN client built into the platform that provides access to L2TP and IPSec protocols.

Device policy management for camera

The platform adds a new policy control for administrators who manage devices using an installed Device Policy Managing director. Administrators can now remotely disable the camera on a managed device for users working in sensitive environments.

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