Honeycomb and Gingerbread headed on a collision course, says Schmidt

When Apple first released the iPad, they effectively forked iOS. iOS version 3.1.3 was for iPhones and iPod Touches, iOS 3.2 was for the iPad. Even when iOS 4 came out, Apple wasn’t able to merge the two forks: that had to wait until iOS 4.2. The lesson? Making an operating system that is good for both small screen and larger screen devices isn’t as easy as it appears.

Now that Google is bringing Android to tablets, it’s finding it has the same problem on its hands. With Honeycomb, Android will effectively be forked, leaving smartphones behind using Gingerbread. Will they ever merge, or will Google simply start shipping two major Android forks indefinitely?

Laying out the Android roadmap during a keynote speech at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, Google CEO Eric Schmidt converged that Gingerbread and Honeycomb were headed on a collision course.

Schmidt promises that with the next version after Honeycomb, Android will again merge, bringing the best of the smartphone and tablet iterations of Android together. Schmidt expects this consolidated Android to ship about six months after Honeycomb lands, with additional versions of Android shipping approximately every six months thereafter.

As for the most pressing question on everyone’s mind, what snack will the next version of Android be named after, Schmidt quipped: “You can imagine the follow up will start with an I, be named after dessert, and will combine these two.” That seems to confirm previous rumors that whatever is after Honeycomb will be Android Ice-Cream Sandwich.

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Honeycomb / Android 3.0 SDK Previewed. Release Please?

Categories: Android, Google, eReaders & Tablets, motorola

Google is still teasing Honeycomb and this time its to the developers with a preview of the Android 3.0 platform. Android 3.0 was for the first time teased at CES 2011 and a few announcements have been made already. The most hyped up for sure is the Motorola Xoom tablet that has kicked off with a big mouth pre-CES teaser video. But as Apple points out, there are no details on pricing and specs given yet! No, I don’t want to quote Tim Cook here, but I am still referring to our report that the world won’t see Honeycomb tablets before Q2 2011! We expect Motorola to be an exception to this (with Google’s blessings), but if people are waiting for a Xoom launch in February, shouldn’t developers already be working on apps? Either ways, here is what the SDK preview has:

The Android 3.0 preview refers to several New User features and Developer Features. While you can glance through the entire list here, there are several changes / new additions like UI evolution, keyboard, text selection (copy/paste), widgets, browser, email app and more. Old apps would be compatible:

Android 3.0 brings a new UI designed for tablets and other larger screen devices, but it also is fully compatible with applications developed for earlier versions of the platform, or for smaller screen sizes. Existing applications can seamlessly participate in the new holographic UI theme without code changes, by adding a single attribute in their manifest files.

Widgets on Honeycomb

We have seen Andy Rubin demo 3D maps before and Honeycomb packs in hardware accelerated 2D graphics aswell. We would certainly make better sense of all this with some developers delivering on it! For now the confirmation of the fact that Android 3.0 isn’t limited to dual-core processors, leaves us with the hope and manufacturers with the task of getting an update to existing Froyo tablets.

Tags: android 3, android tablet, honeycomb, honeycomb tablet, motorola tablet, tablet, xoom tablet

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Google releases Android 3 (Honeycomb) SDK to developers

Google needs to do a lot with the next version of their Android operating system, codenamed Honeycomb… namely, bring it up to par with iOS in the tablet OS space. That’s an area even Gingerbread isn’t very good at, and so Honeycomb is going to say a lot about Android’s long term viability as an OS for larger screen touch devices.
Luckily, it seems things are shaping up nicely so far. Google has just revealed the Android 3.0 SDK, which not only includes a refined UI framework for large-screen devices and all sorts of other tablet-centric tweaks, but also support for multi-core processors, high-quality 2D and 3D graphics, Bluetooth A2DP and HSP.
The first thing you’ll notice about the developer preview is the new Honeycomb UI which stretches the system bar at the bottom of larger displays and gives global status info, while a top action bar allows you to manage your apps. The browser gets multiple tab support, allowing for more comfortable full-screen navigation, and it even supports Chrome bookmark syncing, multitouch support for JavaScript and plugins, and auto-sign-on into Google accounts.
Honeycomb also gives enterprise customers some new stuff to love, including support for encrypted storage, password expiration and e-mail.
Honeycomb’s looking great so far, but there’s many months yet before we get it. Until Google can get a release candidate of Honeycomb out the door, Android is just not going to be on firm footings in the tablet space.
Read more at Android
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