With the 7th iteration of the Android OS, Google has aimed to unify the user experience across phones and tablets. This might be the much needed break in the growing popularity of Android. Let us take a closer look at the journey and potential of Android.
It has been a roller coaster ride for the Google OS since the first Android version offered to public, codenamed Cupcake. Up until the last episode, the Gingerbread, Android had mainly focused on the phone form factor. With Honeycomb, Google proved that Android has great potential for tablets as well. However, Honeycomb was not launched publicly, and Google had promised the tablet owners (like myself) that the wait will be worthwhile. And it has!
Coming to Ice Cream Sandwich, it seems that Google has successfully knocked down two birds with one stone. ICS gives the Honeycomb hungry tablet owners an amazing and sleek UI and functionality, while at the same time makes a phenomenal change in the small screen UI, making it the best UI experience for phones yet! But the UI revamp is just skimming the surface.
This time around, Google has made it a point that the developers can easily build applications for a wide variety of devices in all hardware and screen specs. The OS intelligently adjusts according to the screen size it is deployed on, thus making it seamless for apps to run across phones or tablets.
The new Android version has souped up many of its native apps for better usability as well as looks.
Comparing all the above with Apple, Google has definitely taken a step in the right direction. Android is the fastest growing OS in mobile market share and ICS unifies all Android users irrespective of their devices. It is much like the Microsoft Windows on PCs, which makes all of us compatible with each other irrespective of the brand or specs of our machines.
Apple on the other hand restricts its customers to a specific device (phone or tablet) and its apps. This has divided even the Apple users into those who own both the devices, and those that will never experience the difference in the two.
Here are some pictures of the new Android Ice Cream Sandwich OS. Let us know your feedback in the comments.
