Google has also added a widget that displays the latest news stories and weather on your home screen, then offers multiple tabs of news and weather information when opened in its full size.
The photo gallery in Android 2. It also integrates two-way sync with online photo albums stored at Picasa. Neither Motorola nor HTC has announced an exact date for when specific Android handsets will receive the 2. Motorola has, however, stated that all of its Android devices will be updated. ICS looked to change that with a new feature called Android Beam that allowed two Beam-enabled phones to transfer data just by touching them together, and it was open: developers could extend it and use it however they saw fit.
Face unlock. In addition to the pattern and password locks that were already supported, Android 4. It was arguably more of a novelty than anything else since it could be defeated with a picture of the individual who owned the phone.
Data usage analysis. Just as Gingerbread improved visibility into battery usage by application, Android 4. You could see overall usage broken down by any time period you liked and set alerts to prevent overage , but additionally, you could drive down on an application-by-application basis to see what was eating your megabytes. New calendar and mail apps. The Gmail and traditional email experiences on Android 4. The calendar app got a unified view for the first time, which was convenient for those who used multiple accounts on their device.
A quick glance at 4. Of all the user-facing changes, Google Now was undoubtedly the biggest, most important, and most ambitious, and it predated how Google Assistant helps manage your daily tasks today. Google Now sought to do a lot of your day-to-day thinking for you, predicting what you need to know before you ask.
It might have given you a drive time home if it detected that you were at your office, for instance. It also integrated a revamped natural language search function with perhaps the most realistic text-to-speech system ever offered on a phone.
Roboto refresh. New styles and weights were used throughout the UI italic was seen in Google Now, for instance , and the font rendered a little differently than it did before.
Android long had the best and most flexible notification system in the business with webOS arguably the exception , and Android 4. Developers could create more dynamic notifications that could expand right inside the notification drop-down to reveal more information and controls without opening the app. Notifications could also be toggled off on an app-by-app basis, which was a useful feature first introduced by Apple with the debut of the Notification Center in iOS 5.
Widget flexibility. Resizable home screen widgets first came to the platform in Android 3. They could be resized dynamically.
The task of trying to fit all your widgets and icons on a single panel is a notoriously frustrating one, but widgets adjusted to fit the available space. Icons also moved out of the way to accommodate your drop target, much as they do in iOS.
Predictive text. The focus turned away from word correction and toward word prediction , a capability made famous by the widely popular SwiftKey and adopted by BlackBerry the keyboard attempted to guess the next word that you wanted to write and adapt to your writing style over time.
While Android 4. Announced just six months after 4. One of the biggest additions to come with 4. Eventually, this feature would make its way into a standalone hardware called Google Chromecast , a device that continues to be iterated to this day.
Redesigned clock app and clock widgets. One of the biggest visual changes in 4. Google also added new analog and digital home screen widgets to the clock app. Multiple user profiles. A Photosphere is a degree panoramic image that is captured by panning the device around to encapsulate the whole scene. Daydream screensavers.
Daydream essentially replicates the Exhibition mode that came with webOS 2. Accessibility enhancements. Though we had been waiting for Android 5 for some time, Google threw us a curveball by once again sticking with Jelly Bean and a point update: Android 4. As you might expect from the small jump in numbers, this update had an equally small jump in features. The most high-profile change to 4. Google had begun making a big push for Android gaming earlier in the year, and with 4.
Apple followed suit with its own OS later in the year, though, and still maintains a significant edge in the gaming ecosystem. For Android users, the relatively minor updates in 4.
For one thing, there was less consternation about the inevitable delays that every Android phone faces in getting the latest version of the OS. Many core apps like Gmail, Chrome, and Calendar get updated on a regular basis without the need for a giant OS refresh.
That means that Android users get the benefits of those improved app right away, instead of having to wait for manufacturers and carriers to go through the long, slow process of customization and approval.
Google has already teased that the next version is coming — and it has a surprising name. Google released Android 4.
KitKat was the first time that Google has partnered with an outside brand for the Android mascot, and the company launched a massive marketing campaign with Nestle for it. Google would then repeat a similar partnership in with Android 8. Despite being just a point update, 4. Google took the visual concepts used in 4. The familiar blue accent color seen throughout versions 4.
Additionally, a number of stock apps were redesigned with lighter color schemes. But the biggest change was found in the home screen: Android 4. This allowed it to run on lower-end and older hardware, encouraging manufacturers to update their existing devices and launch new devices with KitKat instead of resorting to older versions of Android. Google Now in the home screen. The biggest feature for Android 4. The predictive search service was pulled out of hiding behind a swipe up gesture, giving it prime real estate as the leftmost page of the new launcher.
New dialer. In addition to the new searching features, Android 4. Full-screen apps. Complementing the new transparent status bar and navigation buttons was the ability for apps to run completely full screen. Apps had the option to hide the status bar and navigation buttons entirely, providing a more immersive experience. The lock screen also offered full-screen album art and cover art for when you are listening to music and playing movies or TV shows on a Chromecast.
Unified Hangouts app. Though the new features were also available to earlier versions of Android, they made their debut with KitKat and the Nexus 5.
Redesigned Clock and Downloads apps. For the second time since Android 4. The new app offers a more intuitive interface for setting alarms, and does away with the odd bolded hours and thin minutes look of the earlier app.
The Downloads app was also been redesigned with a lighter color scheme and more modern look and feel. With Android 4. Other platforms and third-party apps had offered emoji, but users were granted access to the various smiley faces and icons anywhere in the Android operating system.
Productivity enhancements. Google made productivity a big focus in Android 4. The new Quickoffice gave users access to files stored on cloud services such as Dropbox, Box, and others, in addition to Google Drive.
Google also updated its long-neglected standard email app not Gmail with better navigation, nested folders, and other improvements. On devices such as the Nexus 5, Android 4. Bright green had long been the color of Android's robot mascot, and with Gingerbread, it became an integral part of the operating system's appearance. Black and green seeped all over the UI as Android started its slow march toward distinctive design. Android 3. Under the guidance of newly arrived design chief Matias Duarte , Honeycomb introduced a dramatically reimagined UI for Android.
It had a space-like "holographic" design that traded the platform's trademark green for blue and placed an emphasis on making the most of a tablet's screen space. While the concept of a tablet-specific interface didn't last long, many of Honeycomb's ideas laid the groundwork for the Android we know today. The software was the first to use on-screen buttons for Android's main navigational commands; it marked the beginning of the end for the permanent overflow-menu button; and it introduced the concept of a card-like UI with its take on the Recent Apps list.
With Honeycomb acting as the bridge from old to new, Ice Cream Sandwich — also released in — served as the platform's official entry into the era of modern design. The release refined the visual concepts introduced with Honeycomb and reunited tablets and phones with a single, unified UI vision.
ICS dropped much of Honeycomb's "holographic" appearance but kept its use of blue as a system-wide highlight. And it carried over core system elements like on-screen buttons and a card-like appearance for app-switching. Android 4. And it started the slow process of bringing a standardized design framework — known as "Holo" — all throughout the OS and into Android's app ecosystem. Spread across three impactful Android versions, and 's Jelly Bean releases took ICS's fresh foundation and made meaningful strides in fine-tuning and building upon it.
The releases added plenty of poise and polish into the operating system and went a long way in making Android more inviting for the average user. Visuals aside, Jelly Bean brought about our first taste of Google Now — the spectacular predictive-intelligence utility that's sadly since devolved into a glorified news feed. Android 5. It adds a new way to transfer data between phones.
Lollipop also introduces a security feature where a device remains locked until the owner signs into their Google account, even if the thief manages to reset the device to factory settings. Finally, Smart Lock keeps your phone from locking when in a trusted place such as your home or work, or when it's connected to a trusted device, like a smartwatch or Bluetooth speaker. Dropped Support for :. Final version : 4. Initial version : Released on October 31, Android 4.
However, the Android team thought that key lime pie was an unfamiliar taste for the masses and went with KitKat, named after a Nestle candy bar, instead. The deal between Android and Nestle was so hush-hush that many Googlers didn't know about it until the unveiling of the KitKat statue at the company's Silicon Valley campus.
The update includes expanded device support compared to previous versions of the OS and the release of Wear formerly Android Wear by Google. The Wear updates 4. Initial version : Released on July 9, Android Jelly Bean continues the trend of enhancing notification options, including custom app notifications. It also adds Actionable Notifications for more applications, which allowed users to respond to notifications without launching the corresponding app.
The update also includes several accessibility improvements such as triple-tapping to magnify the screen, two-finger gestures, Text-to-speech output, and Gesture Mode navigation for blind users.
Initial version : Released on October 18, It also introduces Android Beam, which enabled users to tap the back of their phones together to share photos, videos, contact information, and other data using NFC. This update rolls out to devices running Android 2.
Final version : 3. Initial version : Released on February 22, Android Honeycomb is a tablet-only OS that adds features to make the Android interface compatible with larger screens. Some elements remain available, like Recent Applications. Final version : 2. Initial version : Released on December 6, Android 2. It's also the first OS update to feature an Easter Egg , a Droid standing next to a zombie gingerbread man, with many zombies in the background.
This update also brings us Google Talk, often referred to as Google Chat, Gchat, and a few other names. It was replaced by Google Hangouts, but people still tend to call it Gchat. Initial version : Released on May 20, Android Froyo adds a function that many of us now take for granted—push notifications—in which apps can send alerts even when they're not open. Initial version : Released on October 26, Android Donut adds some usability-related enhancements to the OS, including better search and photo gallery improvements.
Android 1. Final version : 1. Initial version : Released on February 9, In September , the first Android smartphone ships with Android 1. In the U. It has a slide-out keyboard instead of an onscreen keyboard and a clickable trackball for navigation.
0コメント