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Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich):The Ultimate Guide Continued...

Android 4.0 search and voice control

Google is famous for search, so not surprisingly, search is a core part of the Android 4.0 experience. The basic search functionality in ICS is the same as in past Android releases, but there's a new, more convenient way to access it: via a persistent Google search bar at the top of every home screen panel. (Some manufacturer-modified versions of ICS may put the bar in a different location or make it an optional element you can choose to include.)

To search for anything -- whether on your phone or on the Web -- touch your finger to the Google search bar. This will pull up a box that you can type any term into; your phone will start displaying relevant results for items on your phone and on the Web as you type, much like Google does with its Google Instant search feature online.

By default, the Android search function will look through a lot of different types of content, including apps you have installed, contacts you have stored, bookmarks and recently visited Web pages, and music files in your personal collection. You can customize exactly what types of content are and aren't included by tapping the Menu icon at the top-right of the search screen and selecting Settings and then "Searchable items."

In addition to standard search, Android includes a robust voice search system. Simply tap the microphone icon in the Google search bar and begin to speak; your phone will transcribe and then search for whatever words you say. Like regular search, the voice search will include items both on your phone and on the Web.

The microphone icon also gives you access to Google's Voice Actions technology. Voice Actions lets you complete numerous functions on your phone just by speaking (yes, kind of like Apple's Siri -- only this has been around since 2010). Try pressing the microphone and saying some of these commands:

send text to [contact] [message]

call [business name and city]

call [contact]

send email to [contact] [message]

go to [website]

note to self [note]

navigate to [location/business name]

directions to [location/business name]

map of [location]

listen to [artist/song/album]

Android 4.0 text input

Android 4.0 has a virtual keyboard that pops up anytime you're able to enter text. The 4.0-level keyboard is dramatically improved over the one in past Android releases; even when you type sloppily and miss a lot of characters, it can usually figure out what you're trying to say. The keyboard also has built-in word suggestion and spell-check capabilities.

In addition to the regular tap-style input, you can use Android's voice recognition technology to enter text anywhere in the system. Just tap the microphone icon on the keyboard and begin to speak; the system will transcribe text on the fly and show your words on-screen as you talk.

One nice thing about Android compared to other mobile platforms is that you aren't limited to using only the default system keyboard; you can opt to replace or supplement it with a third-party alternative if you'd like. Several popular third-party options exist, including SwiftKey -- which is known for its impressive text-predicting technology -- and Swype, which lets you type by sliding your finger from key to key without ever lifting it up.

Android devices can support a wide range of USB input devices, too, including mice, keyboards and game controllers; you can also wirelessly connect a Bluetooth keyboard to your phone if you really want to get down to business.

Android 4.0 file management and sharing

Unlike other mobile platforms, Android gives you complete control over the files stored on your phone. You can browse your Android device like a computer, moving and copying files or opening and sharing documents at will.

Android 4.0 has a built-in Downloads app that lets you access files you've downloaded from the Web, but the key to truly unlocking your phone's file management potential is installing a good file management app. I like Astro File Manager, which is available for free in the Google Play Store. (The free version of the app has ads; a $3.99 "pro" key will give you an ad-free experience.)

When you open Astro -- or any other comparable file management utility -- you'll see a list of folders and files in your phone's storage. You can navigate through the folders just like you would on your PC's hard drive; pressing and holding any item will give you a list of options like copying, moving, renaming or deleting. It'll also give you an option to send the file to any other compatible application -- if you want to share a document with someone via email, for example, or send it to your Dropbox or Google Drive account.

Android devices can interface with PCs just like portable hard drives, too: Connect your phone to an open USB port on a Windows computer, and it'll automatically show up as a media device (using the MTP protocol). You can then open the device on your computer, click through folders, and copy or move data back and forth as needed.

Mac OS X doesn't natively support the MTP protocol that Android utilizes, so you'll need to install an Android File Transfer application before you can connect your phone to an Apple computer.

Android 4.0 includes full support for near-field communication (NFC), which opens the door for some interesting contact-free device-to-device file sharing. You can pass along a contact, Web page, YouTube video or application from one NFC-enabled Android 4.x device to another simply by touching the two phones together back-to-back; once the connection is established, the system will prompt you to "beam" whatever content is currently loaded on your screen.

With its Galaxy S III phone, Samsung expanded on Android's NFC beaming functionality to allow for contact-free sharing of images, video files and music files; that expanded functionality, however, works only between two Galaxy S III phones and is consequently rather limited in practicality.

Android 4.0 Cheat Sheet

Get up to speed fast with Android 4.0: The charts below show how to perform an array of tasks in ICS, from navigating the interface to locking down your device to managing your apps.

System navigation and home screens

Go back one step:Tap the Back button at the bottom of the screen.

Return to your home screen:Tap the Home button at the bottom of the screen.

Multitask (switch to another recently used app):Tap the Recent Apps button at the bottom of the screen (or long-press the Home button if your phone lacks a Recent Apps button).

Remove an app from the multitasking list:After tapping the Recent Apps button, swipe your finger left or right on the app's thumbnail.

Move among home screen panels:Swipe left or right to move forward or backward through the panels.

Search your phone or the Web:Touch the Google search bar at the top of your home screen.

Search by voice:Touch the microphone icon in the Google search bar at the top of your home screen and speak your search term.

Issue a voice command:Touch the microphone in the Google search bar at the top of your home screen and speak a Voice Actions command.

Browse through the apps on your phone:Tap the circular Apps button at the bottom-center of your home screen to open your app drawer, then swipe left or right to move through the apps.

Add an app shortcut to your home screen:Tap the Apps button, find the app you want, then press and hold its icon and drag it to any position you want on any home screen panel.

Add a widget to your home screen:Tap the Apps button, select the Widgets tab, then press and hold any widget and drag it to any position on any home screen panel.

Move an app or widget already on your own home screen:Press and hold the item you want to move, then drag it to its new location. To move an item from one home screen panel to another, simply drag it to the left- or rightmost edge of the current panel and wait for it to slide across.

Remove an app shortcut from your home screen:Press and hold the icon, then drag it to the Remove icon that appears at the top of the display.

Resize a widget:Press and hold a widget until a blue box appears around it. Then drag an edge of the box up, down, left or right to make the widget larger or smaller.(Note: Some widgets may not be resizable.)

Change the apps in your phone's Favorites tray:Press and hold an app in the tray, then drag it out of the tray. Then press, hold and drag any other app into the open space.

Create a folder on your home screen:Press, hold and drag an app on top of any other app on your home screen; repeat the process to add additional apps into the folder.

Name a home screen folder:Tap the folder to open it, then touch the "Unnamed Folder" text and type your own title in its place.

View notifications:Touch the bar at the top of your screen and pull it down with your finger, then tap any active notification to open it.

Dismiss notifications:Swipe your finger left or right on any notification in the list, or tap the "X" at the top-right to dismiss all notifications at once.

Browse and manipulate your phone's files:Download a file management app such as Astro File Manager, then open it to browse your phone as if it were a PC.

Browse your phone from a computer:Connect your phone to the computer's USB port. With Windows systems, the phone will automatically show up and be available to you as a media device; with Mac OS systems, you'll need to install an Android File Transfer application in order for the phone to be recognized.

Access your phone's bookmarks and open tabs from your computer's browser:Download Google's Chrome for Android beta application. On the new tab screen, tap the star icon to view any synced bookmarks. (You can also access your bookmarks via the browser's drop-down menu.) Tap the open tabs icon -- the box with two arrows -- to view tabs recently open on other Chrome-connected devices.

Overall device configuration Function

Access your device settings:Touch the bar at the top of your screen and pull down the notification panel, then touch the Settings icon next to the date.

Customize ringtones, notification sounds and volume levels:Go to your phone's settings as noted above, then tap Sound and select the appropriate option.

Add new ringtones to your phone:Connect your phone to a computer and move any compatible sound file into the Ringtones folder under Internal Storage. Then go into your phone's settings, tap Sound and select the file.

Add new notification sounds to your phone:Connect your phone to a computer and move any compatible sound file into the Notifications folder under Internal Storage. Then go into your phone's settings, tap Sound and select the file.

Set your phone to silent or vibrate-only:Press and hold the phone's power button, then select one of the volume options that appears on-screen.

Adjust your phone's brightness settings:Go to your phone's settings as noted above, then select Display --> Brightness. Use your finger to move the slider to your desired brightness level, or select "Auto brightness" to have your phone automatically adjust its brightness based on current lighting conditions.

Change how long it takes for your phone's screen to time out:Go to your phone's settings, then select Display --> Sleep and adjust the time. (Remember that the longer the screen stays on, the more battery power will be used.)

Change your phone's wallpaper:Long-press on a blank space on your home screen, then follow the prompts to select a wallpaper from the source you prefer. (Many additional wallpapers, including "live" animated wallpapers, can be found in the Google Play Store.)

View detailed info about storage use on your phone:Go to your phone's settings, then select Storage. You'll see a breakdown of storage use by content type; tapping on any individual type of content will provide you with a more specific breakdown.

View detailed info about your phone's battery usage:Go to your phone's settings, then select Battery. You'll see a chart showing precisely how much of your battery charge each app and process has consumed; tapping on any individual item will provide you with more specific details about that app's activity.

Change your system keyboard:Go to your phone's settings, then select "Language & input." Under "Keyboard & input methods," you'll see a list of keyboards installed on the device. Make sure the keyboard you want to use has a check next to it, then tap Default and select it from the list. (Many additional keyboards can be found in the Google Play Store.)

Perform a factory reset and erase all data on the phone:Go to your phone's settings, then select "Factory data reset" and follow the prompts. Note that this will permanently erase all data and account settings and restore your device to its factory condition.

Browse and activate accessibility options:Go to your phone's settings, then select Accessibility.

App management

Download a new application:Visit the Google Play Store by tapping the Play Store app on your phone or navigating to play.google.com from a computer-based Web browser.

Find additional options in an app:Inside the app, look for an icon with three vertical dots; touch it to view additional options (or press your phone's physical Menu button if you're using a phone that still has such a button).

Change or remove notifications for a specific app:Open the app (Gmail, Email, Messaging, Facebook, etc.) and find its Settings menu, which may be under the vertical dots icon shown just above. Look there for a Notifications option and adjust or disable it as desired. (If an app doesn't have such an option available, it likely doesn't utilize notifications.)

Share content from an app:Inside the app, look for the Share icon. Tap it to bring up a menu of programs that can be used for sharing -- things like Gmail, Facebook, Google Drive, Dropbox, Evernote and so forth.

Uninstall an app:Open your app drawer (via the All Apps button in the Favorites tray). Press and hold the app you wish to uninstall, then drag it to the Uninstall icon that appears on-screen.

Get detailed information about an app:Open your app drawer. Press and hold the app you want to know about, then drag it to the App Info icon that appears on-screen.

Disable a preinstalled system app:Open your app drawer. Press and hold the app you wish to disable, then drag it to the App Info icon that appears on-screen and select the Disable option. (Note that disabling a system app can have unintended consequences; if you aren't sure what something is, it's generally best to leave it alone.)

Android 4.1 (Jelly Bean):The Ultimate Guide

Jelly Bean keeps the basic look and feel established in Android 4.0 but fine-tunes a lot of details. The notification pulldown has a new look, with larger text and more gray and white in place of blue. (It also has some new functionality -- more on that in a bit.)

Lots of new effects and transitions are sprinkled throughout the system, too. When you move your finger over the lock screen, for example, a circle of tiny dots follows your touch. And when you open an app from your home screen, the app opens by zooming up from the space you touched. These types of subtle improvements all add up to make the Android interface more polished and impressive than it's ever been before.

Jelly Bean introduces a new system "share" menu, too, along with an improved "open with" box (you know, the dialog that appears when you tap on a link or file that more than one program could handle). The search box at the top of the home screen has a new frosted type of look. And the initial phone setup/sign-in process gets a major makeover; with Jelly Bean, the process is far more simple and user-friendly than what we've seen in the past.

What about performance? Is Jelly Bean really faster than ICS?

Google calls its Android 4.1 performance push "Project Butter" because it's meant to make everything run much more smoothly (either that or because it's salty and delicious -- but I'm assuming the former).

The difference in speed from Android 4.0 to 4.1 is immediately noticeable. With Jelly Bean, the phone rotates far more quickly than it did in past Android releases. Transitions, especially between the home screen and app drawer, are significantly faster. And the "recent apps" list loads instantly when you tap the button -- the slight delay present in ICS is a thing of the past. I tested two Galaxy Nexus phones side by side, one with Android 4.0 and the other with 4.1, and the improvements were obvious.

Google increased the speed of the Android OS by improving the system frame-rate and display refresh signal and also developing a new touch input system that anticipates where your fingers will land and then gives the CPU an extra shot of power when you touch the screen.

JB's Search And Voice Control

Android 4.1 gets a whole new search system, and boy, is it cool. Instead of simply showing you Web results for whatever term you enter, the Jelly Bean search setup gives you informational cards with detailed answers about what you really want to know. (You can still find standard search results beneath the quick info cards.)

Search is also now more thoroughly integrated into the Android system: In addition to the Google search bar at the top of the home screen, you can get to the Android search tool from the lock screen -- by swiping upward on the slide lock -- or from anywhere in the OS by swiping up from the virtual home button.

The most impressive new thing in Jelly Bean search, without a doubt, is the revamped voice search system. While Google's Voice Actions have allowed you to issue specific voice commands for years, the new 4.1-level setup allows for more natural types of queries as well.

Once in the search tool, you simply say "Google" to activate the new voice command system. Then, you can ask all sorts of questions and Google will show -- and tell -- you the answers.

If you ask "How tall is Scarlett Johansson," for example, the system returns a card with the actress's face (nothing wrong with that) and her height; it also speaks aloud and tells you the information. If you ask "How hot is it gonna be tomorrow" or "Is it supposed to rain this week?" -- or pretty much any other weather-related question -- Google delivers the answer in a similar graphic-plus-audio form.

The options go on and on. You can ask for good Chinese restaurants near you, tell Google to navigate you to a specific location by car or by foot, or ask for any type of Web-accessible information, ranging from when your favorite sports team plays next to when your friend's flight is scheduled to arrive. The existing command-style prompts still work, too, if you want to send yourself a note, compose and send a text, or start listening to a particular band or song.

Google Now

Google Now is another new part of the Android 4.1 search tool. In a nutshell, it uses a combination of your location, search history, calendar, and other habits to automatically deliver relevant information to you throughout the day.

(And if you're worried about privacy, yes, it's optional; Google Now works only if you choose to opt in.)

The concept seems very cool, though it'll take some time to see how useful it actually ends up being. So what kinds of things can Google Now do? Some examples: It can tell you the weather at the start of the day, show you how much traffic to expect as you head out the door to work, show you your favorite sports team's score when the game's underway, and show you when the next train is scheduled to arrive as you step onto the platform.

If you have an upcoming calendar appointment, Google Now can look at the appointment's address and at your current location, then estimate travel time based on current traffic conditions and let you know when you need to leave in order to arrive on time. If you're in a new area, Google Now can recommend nearby restaurants and other places of interest. Cards that are particularly timely appear as notifications on your phone; all other Google Now cards are always available in the Jelly Bean search tool.

4.1 Notifications

Everything! Jelly Bean notifications are a whole new game compared to past Android releases. Visual differences aside, notifications in Android 4.1 are both expandable and action-oriented.

What that means is that you can drag down on notifications, using two fingers, to expand them and get additional information and options. When you expand a missed call alert, for example, you get options to call the person back or text them right from your notifications panel. With new email, you can expand to see details about multiple new messages in your inbox. And with a captured screenshot, you can expand to get an option to share the image right then and there.

Homescreen Jelly Bean

Jelly Bean makes it much easier to add and arrange widgets and shortcuts on your home screen. When you slide in a new widget, the system automatically moves other items in the area to make room for it. If there still isn't enough space, it'll resize the widget for you to make it fit (as much as possible).

The same thing happens with regular app shortcuts: You can slide an icon next to another icon to bump it over and open the space.

Android 4.1 also has a handful of new integrated system widgets, including a bunch of Google Play-related items (to see your purchased/rented multimedia, recommendations for app or multimedia downloads, and so forth) as well as a new Sound Search widget that's basically the same thing as Shazam or SoundHound: You tap the widget while a song is playing, and after "listening" for a few seconds, it tells you the name of the song and the artist who performs it.

Heres a few other things you can find in Jelly Bean

An updated Camera app that lets you swipe on the viewfinder to jump directly into your Gallery of images for easy photo viewing and sharing.

An updated system keyboard with better dictionaries, improved text-to-speech functionality, offline text-to-speech support, and intelligent word prediction (a la SwiftKey).

Added support for contact-free NFC sharing of photos and videos.

"Smart app updates" that let you download only the changed portions of updated applications instead of having to download the entire app every time an update rolls in.

An improved face-unlock security mode that requires you to blink before your phone will unlock.

A slew of new gesture-based navigation commands for visually impaired users; also added support for Braille input and output devices.

CDMA vs GSM

Two basic technologies in mobile phones, CDMA and GSM represent a gap you can't cross. They're the reason you can't use AT&T phones on Verizon's network and vice versa.CDMA (Code Division Multiple Access) and GSM (Global System for Mobiles) are shorthand for the two major radio systems used in cell phones. Both acronyms tend to group together a bunch of technologies run by the same entities. In this story, I'll try to explain who uses which technology and what the real differences are.

Which Carries are CDMA? Which are GSM?

Five of the top seven carriers in the U.S. use CDMA: Verizon Wireless, Sprint, MetroPCS, Cricket, and U.S. Cellular. AT&T and T-Mobile use GSM.

That means we're mostly a CDMA country. It also means we're not part of the norm, because most of the world is GSM. The global spread of GSM came about because in 1987, Europe mandated the technology by law, and because GSM comes from an industry consortium. What we call CDMA, by and large, is owned by chipmaker Qualcomm. This made it less expensive for third parties to build GSM equipment.

There are several variants and options carriers can choose, like toppings on their technological ice cream. In this story we'll be talking about U.S. networks.

For call quality, the technology you use is much less important than the way your carrier has built its network. There are good and bad CDMA and GSM networks, but there are key differences between the technologies. Here's what you, as a consumer, need to know.

It's much easier to swap phones on GSM networks, because GSM carriers put customer information on a removable SIM card. Take the card out, put it in a different phone, and the new phone now has your number. What's more, to be considered GSM, a carrier must accept any GSM-compliant phone. So the GSM carriers don't have total control of the phone you're using.

That's not the case with CDMA. In the U.S., CDMA carriers use network-based white lists to verify their subscribers. That means you can only switch phones with your carrier's permission, and a carrier doesn't have to accept any particular phone onto its network. It could, but typically, U.S. carriers choose not to.

In other words, you can take an unlocked AT&T phone over to T-Mobile (although its 3G may not work well because the frequency bands are different). You can't take a Verizon phone over to Sprint, because Sprint's network rejects non-Sprint phones.

3G CDMA networks (known as "EV-DO" or "Evolution Data Optimized") also, generally, can't make voice calls and transmit data at the same time. Once more, that's an available option (known as "SV-DO" for "Simultaneous Voice and Data Optimization"), but one that U.S. carriers haven't adopted for their networks and phones.

On the other hand, all 3G GSM networks have simultaneous voice and data, because it's a required part of the spec. (3G GSM is also actually a type of CDMA. I'll explain that later.)

So why did so many U.S. carriers go with CDMA? Timing. When Verizon's predecessors and Sprint switched from analog to digital in 1995 and 1996, CDMA was the newest, hottest, fastest technology. It offered more capacity, better call quality and more potential than the GSM of the day. GSM caught up, but by then those carriers' paths were set.

It's possible to switch from CDMA to GSM. Two carriers in Canada have done it, to get access to the wider variety of off-the-shelf GSM phones. But Verizon and Sprint are big enough that they can get custom phones built for them, so they don't see the need to waste money switching 3G technologies when they could be building out their 4G networks.

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