Just as expected, all the home screens were wiped, or more precisely, wiped and replaced with T-Mobile+Samsung select apps. It takes some time to delete them all, but it's worth it.
Bug:
- Can't seem to upload gallery images to Picasa; it won't let you select an album and it states that it "failed to retrieve account information". The automatic sync works, so when you take a photo it appears on Picasa, but of course the issue here is that screenshots cannot be uploaded to Picasa.
- Rendering of images can sometimes lag several seconds. I have no clue what's up with that, but it is a tad annoying when it does happen because it makes you think something is wrong with your eyes.
Annoyances:
- A new gallery album was created for screen shots. The old one was called ScreenCapture, but now there's a new album called Screenshots.
- Talking about screen shots, it was changed on the GS-II. Before, you'd press the home button and the power button simultaneously. Now, you press and hold the down-volume button and the power button simultaneously. If it doesn't seem to work at first, remember to hold it down for about a second.
- A really cool new feature is included with Contacts -- as you pull down on your list of contacts, you can initiate a phone call by swiping left-to-right, or you can initiate a text message by swiping right to left over a contact. The annoyance is, that you can't do that with your Favorites list. Makes having favorites somewhat less useful.
Conveniences / niceties:
- That Contacts thing that allows you to quickly send a text message or call (by swiping left or right over a contact's listing), is really neat.
- Free fonts were added. With Gingerbread you could change the screen font, but you had to go to the Play Store to find free fonts.
- You can hide your pattern unlock, so that people can't easily watch the bright green buttons as you draw a pattern on your lock screen.
- On ICS, Google's main products (Gmail, Drive, Maps) look much cleaner and clearer.
- Looks like some new camera / video recording tools / options were added. Oddly, there is anti-shake stability in the photo options, but none in the video recording options. You can use the LED flash now to record videos, but it does not turn the LED up high enough to be useful for objects further than 5 or 6 feet away.
- After taking a screen shot, it'll show up in the notifications bar, allowing you to immediately access it and move it somewhere.
Cool new stuff:
- Facial recognition unlock. It's a little gimmicky and it's considered low-security, but it's fun to play around with.
- Backup security access. If the facial recognition fails, you can still unlock your phone via other methods, that you set up (pattern, PIN, etc). Same thing goes for each of the unlock options -- they all use secondary unlock means.
- Customized launch bar -- I replaced the Phone function with the Camera, so that I always have it available.
- In the notifications bar, you can now set up the power bar to show the percentage charge remaining.
- Chrome for Android is really neat. If you're using the Beta Channel of the desktop Chrome browser, you've noticed that when you open up a new tab, there's some new notification tabs on the lower-right corner. Similar thing goes for Chrome for Android. Lots of neat stuff here for Chrome users.
- Quick-launch task manager shows a
- NFC / Android beam now available to allow you to share items from phone to phone. Too bad hardly anyone has ICS, though.
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| Chrome bookmarks inside of Chrome for Android |
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| You can track your own actions, regardless of which device you're on. |
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| Replaced the Phone with the Camera in the Launch Bar |
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| Screen shots show up in the notifications bar. |
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| Some new options in the camera app (?) |
Update: Something new I discovered. The Google Play Music app now allows you access via the unlock screen, without having to unlock. The stock Android player does not have this functionality built in. It is of limited usefulness for me, as I use a stereo bluetooth headset to do a majority of my listening, which already allows me to go back, forward and pause music, without reaching for the phone.
I'm not sure if this was already in Google Play Music, but I've noticed that there seem to be a few extra options now. I've been using the GMP app more and more lately, but perhaps the refresh of the OS opened my eyes up.
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| Access your playlist without unlocking the screen. |
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| Was this always here in the Google Music Play app? |
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