Hoping to love Ice Cream Sandwich

I love my iPad but we really need some competition in the tablet market… some real competition.So I have high hopes for Android’s Ice Cream Sandwich.

Funnily enough, some of the hardware for Android is pretty nice. I have an Asus Transformer and in many ways I like its form factor and overall hardware better than the iPad. But the software is just clunky and no fun to use. (Then there is the way the Transformer handles video… don’t get me started)

My biggest pet peeve, the text input seems to have been addressed. This is AWESOME news because text input as it stands now is total rubbish.

Speaking to developers, I know that a lot of them love the tablet format. Tablets give you great screen real estate, they work for mobile, great opportunities to use all the various internal devices for great apps, the list goes on. But we need competition.  The platforms need to be competing for developer attention and this isn’t happening. We’ve seen on great spike in app creativity around the iPad. If Ice Cream Sandwich is a hit, we may yet see a second.

I can’t pass final judgment on this version of Android until I use it myself, but based on the demonstration I saw, it’s safe to say that Ice Cream Sandwich is a large, positive step forward for Android. It removes many of the inconsistencies found in the current versions while improving and simplifying the feature set of Google’s mobile platform.

via Ice Cream Sandwich: What you need to know about Android 4.0 — Mobile Technology News.