It’s hot outside! Who wants an Ice Cream Sandwich?

Here at Archos, we’re excited about the new Android Operating System deliciously referred to as Ice Cream Sandwich, or more technically, Android 4.0. The Ice Cream Sandwich platform includes a number of updates to benefit your user experience like enhanced camera capabilities, intuitive navigation, and an improved voice input engine, just to name a few. Below are some of our favorite enhancements from Ice Cream Sandwich in more detail.

From the Home screen, you can now do much more than add shortcuts. Live application content can be embedded directly through interactive widgets so you can check your email, look through your calendar, or check out your Facebook feeds without even having to launch apps. Multitasking is made easier with the Recent Apps button that lets you jump instantly from one task to another by tapping a thumbnail of a recently used App in the System Bar.

Android has made a number of impressive updates to the Camera app to improve image quality and ease of use, including continuous focus, zero shutter lag exposure, and decreased shot-to-shot speed. Stabilized image zoom lets you create photos and video in the way you want, including while video is recording. You can even take full resolution snapshots right in the middle of shooting video by tapping the screen as video continues to record. Built-in face detection locates faces in the frame and automatically sets focus, or for more control, you can tap to focus anywhere in the preview image. For capturing large scenes, the Camera offers a single-motion panorama mode. In this mode, you start an exposure and then slowly turn the Camera to take in as wide a perspective as needed and the Camera will assemble the full range of continuous imagery into a single panoramic photo.

Especially fun updates for shooting video are the Live Effects and Silly Faces apps. You can change the background behind a subject to any stock or custom image, or use a set of morphing effects to transform facial features. Small eyes, big mouth, big nose, face squeeze, and more Silly Face effects offer endless entertainment. Live Effects is even available during video chat in the Google Talk app.

In Android 4.0, email is easier to send, read, and manage. For composing email, improved auto-completion of recipients helps with finding and adding frequent contacts more quickly. For easier input of frequent text, you can now create quick responses and store them in the app, then enter them from a convenient menu when composing. When replying to a message, you can now toggle the message to Reply All and Forward without changing screens. For keeping track of incoming email more easily, a resizable Email widget lets you flick through recent email right from the home screen, then jump into the Email app to compose or reply.

Coming up next for Android operating systems is Android 4.1, Jelly Bean, with even more improvements and added features to make Android products faster and more intuitive than they have ever been.