Icy Time

Summary

With the launch of Android 4.0 Ice Cream Sandwich Google also released their new design guidelines—and that’s a step in the right direction for making high quality applications possible.
We’re starting to see the fruits of this endeavour and a good example of the new simple, elegant look is Icy Time. As always, read on to for more details.
 

Icy Time is a simple stopwatch and timer application that uses the Holo theme. Icy Time really only provides the basic functions of this type app, but it does what it promises to do very well.

Both the stopwatch and timer features run very smoothly. When using the stopwatch lap times and end times can be shared via Google + and Facebook, which is fun.

The main drawback is that Icy Time does not come with enough features, be it little details that make using the app more comfortable or larger types of functions. For instance, it isn’t possible to track the total time, which means it’s up to users to use their noggins and make mental calculations (or use a calculator). Furthermore, once you’ve hit the stop button you won’t be able to pick up again where you left off.
It isn’t possible to make changes to any of the settings, be it how the alarm function, the app design, colour theme. I find this to be a pity as Android users tend to have their own ideas about how they want specific features to perform and look like.
Lastly, when the timer feature is activated and you switch from portrait to landscape mode the app automatically switches to the stopwatch function. We found mention of this in comments in the Play Store which leads us to believe that this occurrence is more likely being caused by a bug rather than it being an actual function.

Bottom line:
Is a great minimalist and simple app with and well worth having a look at if you’re on the prowl for a timer and stopwatch app with a nice design. That said, if you’re the type of user who isn’t satisfied with only start and stop buttons to play around with you may find yourself feeling somewhat underwhelmed by Icy Time… But it’s still worth checking out, if only for its cool minimal design.
 

As mentioned, the Icy Time design is very cool if you dig the understated look. The developers did a good job of applying the new Google design guidelines and creating a well-functioning app that’s nice to look at to boot.

You can swipe to switch from timer to stopwatch and back again, and the experience is smooth and fluid overall.

If your device runs on anything lower than Android 4.0 the app will resort to the Holo theme. For anything lower than 2.2 the developers resort to one of their own themes which isn’t all too different from what’s available for newer generation devices.
 

Icy Time performs very well and without crashing or lagging.

Icy Time is available for free from the Play Store which means there aren’t any ad banners.