Google’s Android OS has once again hit the headlines this week with the revelation that Steve Jobs saw the system as ‘grand theft’ of Apple’s intellectual property and promised to go ‘thermonuclear’ to sink Google’s smart phone contender. In spite of this bad press, the new Android upgrade has been previewed this week and looks set to continue the animosity between the two companies.

Following the three versions of Honeycomb that graced Android phones and tablets prior to 19 October, it’s now the turn of the strangely named Ice Cream Sandwich to take charge of the market, providing an increasingly customisable interface that leads the charge against Apple. The release of the new OS within days of the iPhone 4S announcement is in the best interests of Google, which looks to take advantage of the widespread disappointment that resulted from Apple’s failure to unveil a fully revamped iPhone 5. The benefits of Ice Cream Sandwich are there for all to see and will undeniably generate further interest in smart phones, for those who haven’t already adopted the technology.

So what features can we expect from Google’s latest release? Firstly, there are a few things that establish the new Android platform as a direct competitor to the iPhone. The most obvious seems to be the screenshot capture feature, accessed with a simple two-button push. It’s not as intuitive as the one-button and power combination that Apple has, but it’s a start. Similarly, the camera function can now zoom during recording, as well as giving time-lapse settings. The voice recognition software, which responds to commands and converts into text, is clearly another Apple spy mission that has succeeded in more competition between the two OS options.

Face Unlock, a facial recognition service, also adds to the new tools that seem to be standardising between the two platforms. Hardware acceleration, drag-and-drop folders, shutting down data-using apps and better error correction also add to the list of things the iPhone already announced, or has been doing for months or years already.

Still, there are some other benefits of Ice Cream Sandwich. There’s a data usage section that allows users to set warnings when they get to a certain amount of use, then disable any data after exceeding the limit. They can also shut down apps that scrape data that are running in the background. Widgets are now in a new tab, listed in a similar way to apps, and can be resized. Several features will be of interest to digital marketers like the level synchronicity, which the new OS has with some of Google’s other products, such as its compatibility with Chrome book marks, tabbed browsing and better Gmail functionality. This standardisation was only a matter of time and is a further signal of how seriously Google is taking its mobile arm and how important mobile marketing is likely to become in the coming months and years.

To top it off, Ice Cream Sandwich also features the “modern, yet approachable” Roboto font. It may not be that exciting, but they’re making a lot of noise about it.

All-in-all, there’s a lot to like and a few features that people won’t be too bothered about. It only remains to be seen if the next generation of handsets will work hard to get the most out of these options, building on the hard work of the new Galaxy Nexus which has already got plenty of praise from reviewers.

With Android usage up 634% in the last year, Google may finally be about to steal the smart phone crown from Apple in the UK. Still, the iPhone 4S sold four million units in three days, surpassing the 1.7 million units it sold of the entirely new iPhone 4 in the same period, so it may not be clear cut just yet who will emerge the winner. Either way, with figures such as that, what is clear is that no brand or marketer worth their salt should be ignoring the developments continuing to unfold in the mobile market.

What are your thoughts? -@jameshale88

(Photo: Technorati)