Ice Cream Sandwich on Android tablets: A visual tour
We've heard all about how Google's Android 4.0, aka Ice Cream Sandwich, is changing the face of the Android phone. But what does the new software mean for the Android tablet? — Ice Cream Sandwich, after all, is the first Android release …
Context & Ripple Effects
Ice Cream Sandwich was positioned from its official October 2011 unveiling as the first Android release built for phones and tablets at once, ending the split where tablets ran the separate Honeycomb line. Google's rollout started on the phone side, with employees receiving Ice Cream Sandwich OTAs on Nexus S handsets in December 2011.
What this Computerworld tour does is put the tablet question under the lens: after months of phone-centric coverage, it shows what the unified interface actually looks like on larger screens. That matters because Sony has already committed to bringing Android 4.0 to its Tablet S and Tablet P devices, making existing tablet owners the first real audience for this transition.
First-order effects
- Owners of upgradable tablets like Sony's Tablet S and Tablet P get a concrete preview of what Android 4.0 changes on their devices, before any over-the-air update lands.
- Tablet makers who shipped Honeycomb-only devices now face visible side-by-side comparisons of their software against Google's new baseline, raising the cost of slow or absent update commitments.
Second-order effects
- OEM differentiation shifts from custom UI layers toward update speed and hardware, since the core interface is now defined by Google across both form factors.
- Retail positioning changes: tablets still running Honeycomb compete against both newer ICS slates and the expectation that older models will be updated, pressuring pricing on lingering inventory.
Third-order effects
- If the single-codebase approach holds, Android's tablet story stops being a separate product line and becomes a screen-size variable within one platform, concentrating control of the interface in Google's hands and making update delivery the main fault line between manufacturers.
The trend: Android is consolidating its phone and tablet lines into one Ice Cream Sandwich codebase, turning manufacturer update speed into the primary competitive differentiator for tablets.