My name is Josh Dale. I currently work as an Android developer at Bypass Lane. I live in the great city of Austin, Texas. I enjoy the great outdoors and occasionally blog about my hiking and camping adventures on texashikes.com
You can contact me by email at j /dot/ dale38 /at/ gmail /dot/ com, on Google+, or find me on the Android Market.
The folks over at Android Developers have released some sample code to implement Action Bar design patterns for pre-API 11 devices. The code and concepts have been around for some time now, and many developers have been implementing 3rd-party libraries to achieve this goal (ActionBarSherlock and GreenDroid). Now with the latest code release of Android, Ice Cream Sandwich, developers need to consider standardized design elements across all API levels.
The main goal of the ActionBar is to provide vital information to the user about your application. This is also a great place to use your icon or logo for brand recognition and consistent navigations throughout the app. Now the user subliminally thinks about your logo as a specific navigational action. If the user needs to return to the home screen in the app, they have to visualize your brand.