When it comes to testing bandwidth throughput of your Android device, the Speedtest.net app is considered a de facto standard - it's functional, the UI is gorgeous, and there is a good chance they have a server pretty close to your location. I've tried all the speed testing programs in the Market, and always kept coming back to this one. For a long time the app has remained unchanged on the Market, lagging behind its iOS counterpart and its shiny new user interface. Well, no more. Ookla, the company behind the Speedtest.net app, just dropped version 2.0 into the Market, and I can tell you that their final product is simply gorgeous (especially if you've never seen the iOS version). The UI is completely revamped, the Thunderbolt upload bug seems to be fixed (I tested using my loaner Thunderbolt, and it no longer reported 30mbps+ speeds), the server selection process no longer puts me somewhere in Kansas, and the whole experience is a lot more polished. Older devices will benefit from the new animation quality vs. performance slider in the settings, while newer, larger devices will enjoy more native support for high resolution screens. Check out the changelog and our screenshots below, followed by a link to the app's Market page: Completely revamped user interface: Takes advantage of higher resolution screens Animation speed slider added to settings to support older hardware Real-time graphs for download and upload tests: See throughput consistency over test duration Identify drops in connection quality Other improvements: Better server selection process Many bug fixes wm_device wm_device2 wm_device3 wm_device4 wm_device6 wm_device7

In an age where a "contact" is more than a mere phone number and email address, contact management has become a tedious process. So, I was pleased to see Google taking a step in the right direction with ICS and updating the contact manager into the new and improved "People" app. During the ICS live blog Hugo Barra, Product Management Director for Android at Google, demoed the new People app by showing off how it seamlessly integrated all the contact's basic information together with the person's different social profiles.

The user interface has also been completely revamped and viewing contacts has now become a much more visual experience. The People app will pull high-resolution images of all your contacts straight from their Google+ account and display them in the contact list and in the in-call background. It seems that there is now yet another incentive to move your social circle over to Google+.

 

My only issue with the new People app is that the focus is on having high-quality images for your contacts. Indeed without these images, some of the screens may look oddly empty. For example, imagine the following frequently contacted list if your contacts did not have high-quality photos:

According to the API Overview of ICS when a new photo is pushed to a contact, "the system processes it into both a 96x96 thumbnail (as it has previously) and a 256x256 "display photo" that's stored in a new file-based photo store".
In addition to the visual improvements, ICS seems to have taken a page out of Windows Phone 7 as it now allows you to swipe between the contact list, contact groups, and your most frequently contacted users.
There are also in-call improvements as you are now able to send canned responses instead of answering your phone. There were many apps in the Market that allowed you to do this, but it's nice to have the feature built-in.
Finally, your contacts information is now available to you no matter which app you are in. So, for example if you are in Gmail, viewing an email from your contact, you can click on their image to reply to the contact through any available channel, including through SMS, social networks, or via IM.

The UI improvements and the seamless integration of all your contacts' information should make finding and contacting your "People" that much easier.