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Android Ice Cream Sandwich Features

android.com

13 pointssolipsist12 comments

One interesting feature that I didn't know about in Ice Cream Sandwich was Face Unlock. Make sure you scroll to the bottom to read about it.

It would be a more impressive feature if it didn't fail to work during the keynote, not to mention that it can be thwarted by a picture of the person.

The general refinement of the Android UX is by far the most impressive feature of 4.0. Face Unlock is just a lame, poorly thought out gimmick IMO.

> it can be thwarted by a picture of the person

Of course, they are aware of this. When you enable it, a warning is shown saying that the lock can be bypassed by using a picture or even with a person that looks like you! :)

Almost all reviews have been rather glowing about the feature, noting it's fast. And Google themselves have said that it could be faster, but that people didn't believe it was doing anything without adding a delay.

If speed to unlock is what's so important, what is the point in locking it at all?

Is this is a serious question? The "lock" is to prevent pocket presses... yes, my warm legs set off the screen rather often on accident. Normally you have to slide to unlock, this is actually faster, surprisingly.

Most people I know don't use a pattern, pin or password. If you're doing it for a security reason, then face unlock is just silly.

(For what it's worth, it would be much easier to grab a complete stranger's phone and get the pattern unlocked than the face unlock. The finger marks for the screen unlocks are incredibly easy to see)

Yes, it was. Silly me, I figured that if Google was piling features on to Android devices, that they would be important. If it's just an alternative to slide to unlock, then it really is a pointless stupid gimmick. I guess I gave them too much credit.

You know what the antithesis of good mobile development is? Piling on gimmicky features just because. IMO, Face Unlock is indicative of everything that is still wrong with the direction of Android, which is such a shame because overall Android 4.0 is indicative that they are trying to shake that image by focusing more on the core experience.

What's wrong with the Roboto font? I am seeing this using Chrome 15 and Windows XP: http://i.imgur.com/BYq1J.png

In Firefox it improves, but it's still weird: http://i.imgur.com/c606f.png

I am seeing the samething on Chrome 15 and Windows XP. I wonder if there is some issue with the font rendering engine on XP. Additionally, if you zoom in 3 or 4 times on the page the font suddenly clears up.

They've also redesigned the whole Android.com site.

I really only care about one feature: Does it still lock up and stall for multiple seconds at a time randomly?

Looks great but loads terribly slow.

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