Android 4.0 ICS Tablet Interface Discovered Inside Galaxy Nexus
Back a few months ago there was a discovery made by an intrepid developer inside Android's Honeycomb OS in which changing the LCD density to a smaller value than the tablet it was running on had revealed a smartphone interface for the otherwise tablet-sized OS – one day after the USA-based Galaxy Nexus has been revealed here in the USA and our pal Michael Crider from Android Community has discovered that essentially the same thing happens in reverse with Ice Cream Sandwich. What Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich is meant to do for the Google mobile OS is create one single OS that works just as well for handsets as it does for tablets, but until now we've got less than an adequate look at what this means for larger screened devices. As Crider shows here, it's a rather interesting experience that everyone should have.
On the other hand, heed his warning: what Crider's done to achieve this result is to unlock and root his device first, then mess around in the guts. If you do this, you'll likely break your brand new device less than a day after you first purchased it. Don't do that unless you love pain. Let Crider do it and sit back and clap for his awesome ability to mess in guts.
Mostly what you'll see here if the device is in this state is a Honeycomb unlock screen like you've seen in the past and some off-set screens that don't end up working all that well. This is because though there are coded bits in this build of Ice Cream Sandwich that are capable of going tablet sized, but with this set of settings you'll not have the experience Google intends. The first place we'll see both interfaces working from one single build of Ice Cream Sandwich is likely the ASUS Padfone combination tablet / handset that'll be coming sometime inside 2012.
You may well see a quad-core NVIDIA Tegra 3 in there too, but shhh, that's not important now. Have a look at the rest of Crider's thoughts on this build hack and do NOT do this to your device unless you want to destroy that which you love so dearly. More on Android Community. Also stick around here on SlashGear for our full review of the Galaxy Nexus from Verizon, coming soon!