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UPDATED: Android 4.0: One set of APIs to rule them all


By Dave Smith
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December 20, 2011 —  (Page 1 of 5)
UPDATE: Google has just released an update to Android 4.0—the Ice Cream Sandwich release—before most devices ever received their first build. Google bumped the API Level up to 15 and called it 4.0.3.

This minor release has a short list of hidden gems inside it for developers in addition to what is found in the initial ICS release.  At the top of that list are Intent selectors, which are designed to modify the types of applications an Intent will match without modifying the Intent contents themselves. Selectors are used to tell an Intent to match a specific system application, such as the Gallery, Browser, Calendar, Music, or Maps applications, regardless of what data contents the Intent includes. This allows developers to create direct requests to launch system applications without needing to rely on the implicit filtering behavior of Intent resolution.

For developers connecting their apps to other devices using Bluetooth, the long-awaited UUID discovery methods have been made public in API 15. Developers no longer need to use reflection or other crafty means to obtain the UUID of the service they want to connect with on a remote device in order to open the RFCOMM socket. Two new methods, fetchUuidsWithSdp() and getUuids(), are now available to start the discovery process and to monitor the results via Broadcast, or return the cached data from the last run discovery operation. This change goes a long way to making Android easier to use in working with a broad range of embedded Bluetooth devices.

Finally, the AOSP now includes a full complement of built-in device targets, including the Galaxy Nexus, Nexus S and Xoom tablet. Developers with one of these devices can build and run UserDebug versions of Android 4.0.3 on their development devices.

Android 4.0, codenamed Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS), brings to handsets all of the advances and enhancements introduced for tablets in the 3.x/Honeycomb releases, unifying all Android devices under a single set of developer APIs.

Since Honeycomb was only available on tablet devices, many developers may not even be aware of the features introduced to the platform at that time, and 4.0 may be your first introduction to many of these features. For this reason, we will point out several of the key Honeycomb features that you can now use on all Android devices.


Related Search Term(s): Android, APIs, Ice Cream Sandwich

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Comments


12/21/2011 01:06:33 AM EST

ICO is smooth and works great. I just received it this morning and it works better then GB. Keep up the good work. Love the new music and video options and the movie make is a good touch.

United Statesjared


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