Google has finally unveiled Android 4.0, the unified version of its mobile OS for smartphones and tablets best known by its "Ice Cream Sandwich" code name. The revised Android, which made its debut on a Samsung Galaxy Nexus smartphone (video) also unveiled Tuesday, features a bevy of UI enhancements, social networking integration, and other APIs meant to encourage human and application-based sharing. Android has also beefed up some of its security capabilities, though most are in the form of API support that developers can use as desired.
Google did not provide a release date for Android 4, but did say the Galaxy Nexus running it would be available in November. Available now is the updated Android SDK, so developers can begin modifying or creating applications for Android 4.
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For business users, Android 4 integrates multiple email accounts more completely and now supports Exchange email folders. It also lets users take screenshots from their devices. (Both are longtime iOS capabilities.) Google made some minor adjustments to Android's security and management capabilities by supporting the most recent version of Microsoft's Exchange ActiveSync (EAS) protocol, including newfound support for EAS certificate authentication, use of ABQ strings for device type and mode, an option for IT to disable automatic sync while roaming, and an option for IT to limit attachment size or disable attachments. Also added is support for disabling the device's camera via EAS.
On the security front, Android 4 adopts the better security capabilities found in the tablet version of Android ("Honeycomb") such as on-device encryption, but appears to be leaving deeper management APIs to third parties such as 3LM.
But Android 4 does have a new keychain API, and underlying encrypted storage lets applications store and retrieve private keys and their corresponding certificate chains. Applications can use the keychain API to install and store user certificates and certificate authorities. Android 4 also provides address space layout randomization (ASLR) -- a feature that has helped iOS lead in terms of onboard security capabilities -- to protect system and third-party applications from exploitation due to memory-management issues.
