httpvh://youtu.be/-F_ke3rxopc
Google lanserade inte endast en telefon i samband med dagens presskonferens från Hong Kong utan introducerade parallellt en ny version av Android i form av Ice Cream Sandwich. Bland en mängd nya funktioner märks enligt Mattias Duarte, senior director for Android user experience, en helt ny design speciellt framtagen för att vara konsekvent, enkel och snabb.

Bland de underliggande förändringarna i operativsystemet belyser Lee Johnston, som arbetar med utveckling för bland annat Android på issimo Apps, följande punkter som gör Ice Cream Sandwich till den hittills snabbaste versionen av Android för flerkärniga telefoner.

Uppdatering: Vi går igenom nyheterna i detalj här.

Android 4.0 (or Ice Cream Sandwhich if you will) has 3 major software enhancements that will make a 1.2ghz dual core phone seem like it’s a 3ghz phone running Gingerbread. Here’s why:

1) Hardware Acceleration – this version of Android is the first Handset version that has the Graphics Processing Unit (GPU) in use throughout the operating system. Previously all handset versions of Android had access to the GPU but only through calls to OpenGL in applications and games. Android 4.0 brings native Hardware Acceleration to all parts of the OS. This will make a HUGE difference.
Ever wonder why your iPhone loving friends have a super smooth OS even on a lowly single core cpu on an iPhone4? That’s right, Hardware Acceeration has been in all of ios for a while now. You do NOT need a monster CPU when you have a GPU helping you out.

2) Dual Core Support – Previous handset versions of Android did not truly support dual cores. Android 4.0 will allow an application to run multiple threads split over the cores. This will make a big big difference in Application feel and performance.

3) Garbage Collection – One of the best features of Java can also be it’s worst. Garbage Collection. For those of you that aren’t programmers let me explain. Garbage Collection is when Java (which all Android apps are written in) frees up memory for you. On ios the programmer is responsible for freeing up used memory when it’s no longer needed, Java does this for you. It sends in the Garbage Collectors. This is great but on older versions of Android you could tell when it was happening sometimes… Those freezes and pauses you see in apps sometimes for no apparent reason? Yepp that’s garbage collection.
Android 4.0 will allow the Garbage Collector to run on a different core from your Application. Again this will make a big difference in performance.

—Lee Johnston G+

[Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 user features]

[Android Ice Cream Sandwich 4.0 SDK]