New Ways to Share using Ice Cream Sandwich

The Android 4.0 (Ice Cream Sandwich) provides a common and unified UI for phones and tablets including lots of new UI elements.

The new and exciting sharing and connecting features of Android 4.0 provides the developers more flexibility and creativity in developing apps. The new and exciting sharing and connecting features of Android 4.0 are

New APIs for Sharing

New social, calender and voice-mail APIs to share the contents across the applications and social providers.

Social APIs : A shared provider for social content where any app or social network can put the raw contents and other apps or networks can get the social contents. The shared provider provides the APIs for contacts, photos, stream items and profile data. The sharing is based on the user's permission. 

Calender APIs : A shared calender provider where any app can add and manage the data as dates, events, attendees, alerts and reminders.

Voice Mail APIs:  A shared voice mail provider provides the unified way to manage the voice messages from any applications.

Android Beam: Redefining the sharing using the NFC (Near Field Communication) which allows the user's to quickly share the contents by just tapping the phones together. When  the devices are in range of few 

centimeters the device creates an NFC connection and allow the sharing.

Shared Action Bar : SharedActionProvider for apps to add the sharing functionality to action bar of the application. You can simply add ShareActionProvider to the menu and set an intent that describes the desired sharing action.

News ways of connectivity

Android 4.0 provides the new ways to connect and discover the devices and provides new opportunities for developers to build more informative apps.

Wi-Fi Direct : A new framework allows the developers to connect the near by devices over a high performance , secure and reliable connection. No internet connection or hotspot is needed.

Bluetooth HDP (Health Device Profile) : A new set of framework API,by which applications can use Bluetooth to discover nearby devices, establish reliable or streaming data channels, and manage data transmission. Applications can supply any IEEE 11073 Manager to retrieve and interpret health data from Continua-certified devices such as heart-rate monitors, blood meters, thermometers, and scales.