14 DAY TRIAL // Mobile phone maker Motorola is gearing up to bring the new Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich to a bunch of smartphones, and it is teasing some of the changes users will benefit from.
The company has just unveiled a series of videos showing a new user interface that will be loaded on top of its ICS-running devices, so that people can make an idea of the modifications it has in store for them.
As can be seen in the videos embedded below (available via Phandroid), the UI that Motorola proposes for its Android 4.0 handsets resembles a lot the stock interface, though there are a series of changes around it.
For example, users will have four shortcuts at their disposal on the lock screen, unlike the usual two that have been present in the UI until now. The phone and messages applications can now be accessed from this screen as well.
Moreover, the new UI comes with modified icons, while the camera has been tweaked to take lapse photography.
Not to mention that users who shoot videos will also be able to snap photos while doing so, just as Galaxy Nexus (which runs vanilla ICS) or HTC One X (with Sense 4.0 loaded on it) can.
Android 4.0 will bring its own tweaks to Motorola’s handsets, which leaves little room for the handset vendor to make a larger set of changes.
Given the fact that Google has just completed the acquisition of Motorola, it also makes sense for the vendor’s devices to remain as close to the stock version of Android as possible.
The Ice Cream Sandwich update should begin rolling out to Motorola’s smartphones in the second quarter of the year, with DROID RAZR and DROID RAZR MAXX being the first to receive it.
The deployment will continue in the third and fourth quarters, for devices such as DROID BIONIC, XOOM Wi-Fi, and PHOTON 4G. Unfortunately, many Gingerbread-powered Motorola phones won’t get a taste of ICS.
