And just like that, it's official. After hearing about the next incremental step in Honeycomb's journey by way of Huawei's MediaPad, we've seen breadcrumbs about its functional differences. Today, we're being given the full shebang -- Google has just made official v3.2, boosting the API level to 13 and releasing the SDK into the wild in one fell swoop. The new build brings along optimizations for a "wider range of tablets," as well as "compatibility zoom for fixed-sized apps," media sync from SD card (huzzah!) and an extended screen support API. Head on down to the links below for a closer look, and expect to see this rolling out to [insert your favorite Android tablet here] in due time.
Showing posts with label Honeycomb. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Honeycomb. Show all posts
Saturday, July 16, 2011
Android 3.2 SDK now available, new features get detailed
And just like that, it's official. After hearing about the next incremental step in Honeycomb's journey by way of Huawei's MediaPad, we've seen breadcrumbs about its functional differences. Today, we're being given the full shebang -- Google has just made official v3.2, boosting the API level to 13 and releasing the SDK into the wild in one fell swoop. The new build brings along optimizations for a "wider range of tablets," as well as "compatibility zoom for fixed-sized apps," media sync from SD card (huzzah!) and an extended screen support API. Head on down to the links below for a closer look, and expect to see this rolling out to [insert your favorite Android tablet here] in due time.
Tuesday, February 15, 2011
HANDS ON: Samsung Galaxy Tab 10.1
by
Samsung just delivered another broadside against Apple in the tablet wars. After unveiling a 7-in. Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab, late last year to what became an underwhelming customer response, the Korean company upped its game, announcing a 10-in. version running a better operating system. The Tab 10.1 will be one of the lightest tablets in an increasingly crowded marketplace, and it runs Honeycomb, the next-generation version of Android optimized for tablets. It ships this spring in Europe and Asia; no U.S. launch date has been announced yet.
Here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Tab 10.1 is attracting more buzz than just about any other device, especially after pictures were leaked at the weekend. So is it worth the wait? I made a beeline for the Samsung booth to find out.
An important disclaimer up front: I’m a hard-core iPad user, so any tablet I use is inevitably going to be viewed through that lens. But I’m also not best pleased with the lack of features Apple left out of the first generation iPad (and the lack of new features currently being reported in iPad 2), so I’m prepared to be impressed by its rivals.
Speaking of lenses, that’s one of the first things you notice about the Tab 10.1: an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. The dual-core Nvidia chipset, new for the 10.1, means it can support HD video recording at an impressive 24 frames per second. The happiest experience I had, and this was true for other show attendees I watched playing with the Tab, was taking snapshots, recording videos, and playing with the camera settings. Had video chat been possible on MWC’s spotty wifi coverage, I suspect we would have enjoyed that too. Take that, Apple!
But that, unfortunately, is as good as it gets with the Tab 10.1. Every positive feature of the device comes with a large “but.” Yes, it is supremely light at 1.3 lbs, but it achieves that weight with a cheap-looking plastic faux metal. Yes, the form factor is thin at 0.43 in wide, but that doesn’t take into account the unevenness of the back. Yes, the back has a rugged texture that stops the Tab from slipping out of your hands, but it also gets as hot as a laptop in one corner, which is presumably where the dual-core processors are being thrashed. (One thing you notice about the iPad is that it almost never gets hot, even when you leave the thing out in the sun.) Are you going to want to lean back with a burning device, even if it is only partially burning?
Then there’s the Honeycomb interface, which I’m afraid I and other attendees found to be a confusing mess. The home screen is way too crowded with widgets. The basic app screen is hard to find, as are other important features within apps — such as how to see the photo or video you just captured from the camera screen. Like a lot of Apple tablet rivals, Samsung has seen fit to make their device as button-free as possible; you won’t find anything like the iPad’s all-important home button here to get you straight to your apps. Getting home involves pressing the on-screen back button several times, in the style of a browser. And let’s not mention the several times the Launcher application crashed, which I’ll put down to teething troubles with Honeycomb.
To Samsung and Google’s credit, there is a smoothness to this interface that was lacking in the first Galaxy tab. Scrolling — through slideshows, through app screens, through libraries — is fairly seamless. I enjoyed turning pages in the Book app far more than I do in Apple’s iBooks. The touchscreen was responsive enough. I look forward to trying this device again when it’s closer to a U.S. release. But on first impressions, this hot little device is not going to tempt me away from the iPad’s icy grip.
Samsung just delivered another broadside against Apple in the tablet wars. After unveiling a 7-in. Android tablet, the Galaxy Tab, late last year to what became an underwhelming customer response, the Korean company upped its game, announcing a 10-in. version running a better operating system. The Tab 10.1 will be one of the lightest tablets in an increasingly crowded marketplace, and it runs Honeycomb, the next-generation version of Android optimized for tablets. It ships this spring in Europe and Asia; no U.S. launch date has been announced yet.Here at Mobile World Congress in Barcelona, the Tab 10.1 is attracting more buzz than just about any other device, especially after pictures were leaked at the weekend. So is it worth the wait? I made a beeline for the Samsung booth to find out.
An important disclaimer up front: I’m a hard-core iPad user, so any tablet I use is inevitably going to be viewed through that lens. But I’m also not best pleased with the lack of features Apple left out of the first generation iPad (and the lack of new features currently being reported in iPad 2), so I’m prepared to be impressed by its rivals.
Speaking of lenses, that’s one of the first things you notice about the Tab 10.1: an 8-megapixel camera on the back and a 2-megapixel camera on the front. The dual-core Nvidia chipset, new for the 10.1, means it can support HD video recording at an impressive 24 frames per second. The happiest experience I had, and this was true for other show attendees I watched playing with the Tab, was taking snapshots, recording videos, and playing with the camera settings. Had video chat been possible on MWC’s spotty wifi coverage, I suspect we would have enjoyed that too. Take that, Apple!
But that, unfortunately, is as good as it gets with the Tab 10.1. Every positive feature of the device comes with a large “but.” Yes, it is supremely light at 1.3 lbs, but it achieves that weight with a cheap-looking plastic faux metal. Yes, the form factor is thin at 0.43 in wide, but that doesn’t take into account the unevenness of the back. Yes, the back has a rugged texture that stops the Tab from slipping out of your hands, but it also gets as hot as a laptop in one corner, which is presumably where the dual-core processors are being thrashed. (One thing you notice about the iPad is that it almost never gets hot, even when you leave the thing out in the sun.) Are you going to want to lean back with a burning device, even if it is only partially burning?
To Samsung and Google’s credit, there is a smoothness to this interface that was lacking in the first Galaxy tab. Scrolling — through slideshows, through app screens, through libraries — is fairly seamless. I enjoyed turning pages in the Book app far more than I do in Apple’s iBooks. The touchscreen was responsive enough. I look forward to trying this device again when it’s closer to a U.S. release. But on first impressions, this hot little device is not going to tempt me away from the iPad’s icy grip.
Saturday, February 12, 2011
New Samsung Galaxy Tablet Specs Leaked [REPORT]
by
As Mobile World Congress approaches, we’re hearing rumors that Samsung is readying a successor to its Galaxy Tab and is planning to show off the unnamed tablet Sunday night in Barcelona.
An unnamed source tells Pocket Lint the tablet will be thinner and lighter than its predecessor, and faster, too. It will reportedly have an 8-megapixel camera, a 10.1-inch touchscreen and a dual-core Qualcomm processor — perhaps the same 1.2 GHz chip said to be powering the Samsung Galaxy S2 Smartphone.
This rumor doesn’t come a moment too soon, especially since consumers don’t seem completely happy with the current 7-inch Galaxy Tab (pictured above), reportedly suffering from a return rate of 16%. Compare that to the return rate of iPads at 2%, and there’s clearly a problem.
However, much of that difficulty might have to do with the Android 2.2 “Froyo” operating system, which wasn’t specifically designed for tablets. This new Samsung tablet will likely be running the tablet optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system that’s due to launch February 17.
As Mobile World Congress approaches, we’re hearing rumors that Samsung is readying a successor to its Galaxy Tab and is planning to show off the unnamed tablet Sunday night in Barcelona.An unnamed source tells Pocket Lint the tablet will be thinner and lighter than its predecessor, and faster, too. It will reportedly have an 8-megapixel camera, a 10.1-inch touchscreen and a dual-core Qualcomm processor — perhaps the same 1.2 GHz chip said to be powering the Samsung Galaxy S2 Smartphone.
This rumor doesn’t come a moment too soon, especially since consumers don’t seem completely happy with the current 7-inch Galaxy Tab (pictured above), reportedly suffering from a return rate of 16%. Compare that to the return rate of iPads at 2%, and there’s clearly a problem.
However, much of that difficulty might have to do with the Android 2.2 “Froyo” operating system, which wasn’t specifically designed for tablets. This new Samsung tablet will likely be running the tablet optimized Android 3.0 Honeycomb operating system that’s due to launch February 17.
Saturday, February 5, 2011
Android 3.0: Five Features Your Enterprise IT Manager Will Love
By Eric Lai
Android 3.0 HoneyComb is Google’s attempt to make Android tablets finally competitive with the hot-selling iPad. That primarily means goodies for consumers and developers. But there were some notable features that your IT admin or CIO will love.
Some enterprise features, like strong support for security certificates, remain missing. But the ones added may still be enough to help jumpstart mass adoption of Android tablets in the enterprise. Here they are, ranked from most to least important.
1) Full disk encryption. For protecting data from prying eyes, when passwords and PINs aren’t enough. HoneyComb will not only offer encryption, but it will also allow IT administrators to set policies that force corporate workers to use it (since some workers might skip encryption for performance and battery life reasons).
RIM has long offered device encryption, though BlackBerries have historically not stored much data locally (which is why RIM also offers encryption of data while it is in transport, i.e. sent through the network). So HoneyComb still doesn’t match BlackBerry out of the box, though it does beat iOS 4. iOS’s “Data Protection” feature only automatically encrypts data in its Mail app. For other app data, iOS developers must rewrite their apps to enable encryption. On the other hand, there is no shortage of third-party software that enable policy-based disk encryption on iPhones and iPads (including, full disclosure, the market-leading Afaria software offered by my employer, Sybase).
The downside of encryption, as mentioned above, is a drain on both CPU and battery, though it’s unclear how much. Google does warn that those running encryption for the first time should be plugged in or have a full battery. What’s also unknown: the type and strength of Honeycomb’s encryption, and if/when this feature will migrate to smartphone-oriented versions of Android.
2) Stronger passwords. Android 3.0 offers security-focused administrators three key features: 1) ability to make passwords expireafter a certain time period; 2) ability to mine the password history so as to force users to pick new ones; 3) ability to force users to use complex characters to strengthen their passwords.
3) App compatibility between smartphone and tablet. While Android 3.0 includes many features to make the OS run sweetly on larger-sized tablets, it remains ” fully compatible with applications developed for earlier versions of the platform, or for smaller screen sizes,” according toGoogle’s developer site. “Existing applications can seamlessly participate in the new holographic UI theme without code changes, by adding a single attribute in their manifest files.” This is a boon for developers of all stripes, but especially enterprise ones. That’s because developers of games and other consumer apps where the user interface is a key competitive advantage will still need to rewrite their apps as the screen size shifts. Apart from analytic dashboards, most enterprise apps are more data-driven than UI-driven. Rewrites won’t be needed in most cases.
4) Better user interface. Thumbnails at the bottom of the Android screen that displays all of the running apps, which you can easily switch among. Easier cutting-and-pasting of text. More subtle notifications (bottom right of screen, rather than smack-dab in the middle, passively-aggressively demanding to be acknowledged ala the iPad). Tabbed browsing in Google Chrome. Need I continue?
5) Web-based Android Market. Strictly speaking, this is not a part of Android 3.0, it just happened to be announced the same day. And strictly speaking, nothing’s yet changed for enterprises. What has happened is that users can choose/buy apps via the online Android Market, and then download them straight to their device over-the-air. Contrast that with an iPhone or iPad - if you buy an app via iTunes on your PC, you’ll have to physically tether your Apple device to your PC and sync. Not Apple’s most elegant solution.
The important thing is this: by shoring up the consumer side of its house, Google is now free to focus on improving app distribution for enterprises. Right now, businesses appear to have only two alternatives: 1) post their app on the Android Marketplace or some otheroverly-public app store, and then invite their employees to go and download the app; 2) Point users to a company Web server hosting that file.
Problem is that neither of these channels allows IT managers toproactively push apps and needed updates to employees over-the-air. BlackBerry Enterprise Server has been able to do this for years, whileApple introduced this feature last summer in iOS4.
Google will need to offer this soon to be truly competitive in the enterprise, or some third-party vendor will need to pick up the slack.
Android 3 Honeycomb: Why this changes everything
By Ed Burnette
The first step is to update your AndroidManifest.xml file to add a line like this:
A preview of Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) has finally been released. Developers can download the new platform and updated SDK tools and play around with it before devices such as the Motorola Xoom hit the market in February.
First rumored at Google I/O 2010, and later demoed at CES, Honeycomb was designed from the ground up to support Android-based tablets. Does that mean it won’t run on smartphones too? Is it a fork, assuggested by Steven J. Vaughn-Nichols? Not according to the man behind the overhaul, Matias Duarte.
See also:
- Android ‘Honeycomb’ 3.0: Hands on experience
- Android 3.0 preview, SDK lands: Does this UI entice?
- Google has forked Android
You may remember Duarte as the designer of WebOS from his days at Palm. In an interview with Engadget earlier this month, he said:
What you see in Honeycomb is absolutely the direction for Android… We have to serve all of Android’s needs. [For example,] If Android shows up on a car, you’re going to see the same kinds of improvements, the same design philosophy, the same usability improvements, the same new paradigms, new tools, they’re all going to be part of that.
Indeed, with relaxed minimum requirements on buttons and other features, Android 3 may ultimately find itself on more types of hardware than earlier versions did. And unlike previous versions, you can expect to see official Google-branded apps like GMail, Maps, and the Android Market approved for use on more of those devices.
Existing apps will work on Android 3, but the developer can take steps to make the user interface fit in with the new design. These steps range from a simple 5 minute tweak to a more significant redesign.
The first step is to update your AndroidManifest.xml file to add a line like this:
<uses-sdk android:minSdkVersion="7" android:targetSdkVersion="Honeycomb"/>
Specifying targetSdkVersion=”Honeycomb” tells Android to use the new Holographic UI theme instead of the older defaults. Once the new version of Android is finalized and goes into production you will use “10″ instead of “Honeycomb”. Specifying minSdkVersion=”7″ indicates you can run on devices that have Android 2.1 and higher. Currently that’s over 87% of all devices in the field. You can use a lower value if your app supports older versions.
Next, you can provide alternative layouts for tablet-sized screens. Android 2.3 and above supports the “xlarge” resource qualifier that is activated for tablets. Let’s say you’re writing a twitter application. On a phone you want the twitter stream to occupy the whole screen, but on a tablet you have room to show the stream side-by-side with embedded pictures or conversations or the list of people you follow. To do that, you would put one layout definition (an XML file) in the res/layout directory, and a different one in the res/layout-xlarge directory.
See: Hello, Android! for to learn more about supporting a variety of Android versions, screen resolutions, and API levels in your programs.
With the easy stuff out of the way, you can then use the new APIs in Android 3 to extend your app to take advantage of some of the new user interface paradigms. For example, you could use the brand new Fragment class to define reusable panes within your app, and you could use the new android.animation package for animating the properties of Fragments, Views, or anything else. There’s also a new 3D framework called Renderscript that lets you build 3D scenes and write OpenGL shaders in a platform-independent language. Naturally, the more Honeycomb-specific eye candy you add to your app, the harder it will be for you to back-port it to earlier versions of Android. Be sure to test on all the platforms you support, and support only the platforms you test.
With careful design your programs can look fabulous on all Android versions, screen sizes, and form factors. So in that sense, Android 3 is an evolutionary release just like Android 1.6 or 2.0 was before it. However, the new tablet focus and APIs could enable new types of apps that we haven’t seen on the platform before. You might choose to take advantage of this opportunity to create revolutionary apps that are optimized specifically for Android 3 on tablets. It’s entirely up to you.
Can Honeycomb tablets gain ground by being "just as good" as iPad?
By Sam Diaz
The Google executives were still on stage at the Android Honeycomb event yesterday when a reader of our live coverage chimed in to respond to some chatter about Honeycomb not offering anything to make it better than the iPad. His comment was simple but it stuck with me. He wrote:
If it’s as good and not Apple, I’m fine with it.
Clearly, this reader isn’t a big Apple fan - so he has other motivations. But that got me thinking about whether the Motorola Xoom - the first tablet to be powered by Android 3 (aka Honeycomb) - needs to actually be better than the iPad. Is “just as good” enough?
After all, being “just as good” as the iPhone is how I initially saw Android smartphones. Don’t get me wrong. The iPhone is an amazing product and one that I wanted desperately - but wasn’t willing to do the AT&T thing. Now, I’m a big fan of the Android OS and have no desire to switch to the iPhone, regardless of which carrier it’s on. Never do I feel like I’m compromising my smartphone user experience because my device is powered by Android instead of Apple’s iOS.
Now that we’re moving into tablets, it needs to play out the same way. Google needed to make sure that the Honeycomb experience would be just as good as the iPad experience - and from what I’ve seen it is. And, based on some of my own personal metrics, it’s actually better.
Flash is still a big deal. Android tablets will run Flash while iPad doesn’t. And as much as Steve Jobs wants all of us to hate Flash as much as he does, it really does make me stop and pause. Flash exists in my world and I can’t just not have it - especially in a tablet.
The same goes for expandable storage. I never liked that Apple prices its devices - all of them - based on storage capacity. I love the microSD card in my Android phone - that’s where I store my music and photos. And with Xoom coming in with 32 GB of internal storage and the ability to expand to 32 GB more, it’s a one-up over the iPad.
Still, none of that matters if Google and partners don’t get the pricing right.
We still don’t have any pricing information for the Xoom. If Google or the partners don’t come in lower than the iPad, then it’s going to be an incredibly tough sell. If this experience is the same and the pricing is the same, then they’ve just handed the people who were on the fence over to team Apple. After all, the iPad is already a proven winner. Why would anyone pay the same money for a crapshoot that might or might not live up to the hype? I cannot overstate this: Pricing is key.
Certainly, the forthcoming release of iPad2 will be something to watch, especially if there are significant changes to the device or software. But if Google can build a following with tablets the way it has with smartphones, it can be go head-to-head with Apple - forcing both companies to compete on innovation, as well as pricing.
And when that happens, the consumers - all of us - are the ones who win.
Why does Google name its Android products after desserts?
By John D. Sutter, CNN
(CNN) -- If you've been following tech news this week, you probably came across the term "Honeycomb," Google's unofficial name for its new Google Android operating system.
Honeycomb -- technically Android version 3.0 -- is significant because it's designed for tablet computers, not just smartphones.But on a lighter note, what's up with that name?
As it turns out, all Android operating systems are named after desserts. And, just in case that wasn't nerdy enough for you, Google put these sugary names in alphabetical order.
Here's the edible Android timeline: Cupcake, Donut, Eclair, Froyo, Gingerbread and finally -- at least for now -- Honeycomb.On this week's Tech Check podcast, our team of writers places bets on the next Android OS name. My guess: Icee. (Ice cream is too obvious. Sorry, Doug Gross).The next logical question about this is simple: Why?
Google doesn't want to explain.
"It's kind of like an internal team thing, and we prefer to be a little bit -- how should I say -- a bit inscrutable in the matter, I'll say," said Randall Sarafa, a Google spokesman. "The obvious thing is that, yeah, the Android platform releases, they go by dessert names and by alphabetical order for the most part."
"For the most part" because two versions of Android, 2.0 and 2.1, were both called Eclair. And because Google won't say what it called the first two versions of Android, which you can assume started with "A" and "B."
"As far as the public knows, it started with Cupcake," Sarafa said.
"I have some ideas, but I don't actually know for sure," he said of the first two Android names. "That was, jeez, like four years ago."
A bit more geekery before you get on with your day: Google actually has built statues of these various Android desserts. They sit on the lawn at the company's headquarters in Mountain View, California.
There is a pretty surreal YouTube video of some guys wearing T-shirts and jeans (one has purple hair) and carting in the eclair statue.
"It's kind of a ridiculous thing to look at, right? They're huge," Sarafa said. "The gingerbread man is like 15 feet tall or something."
Of course, Google isn't the only hip-seeming tech company to employ quirky naming conventions. Apple's operating systems are named after cats, although there's some concern that they'rerunning out of fearsome-sounding cat names:
"Apple has pretty much tapped out all the major big-cat names: Cheetah. Puma. Jaguar. Panther. Tiger, Leopard and Snow Leopard," CNN wrote in October when the company "unleashed" Mac OS X Lion.
Here's some more Android background, in case you're interested.
Android is Google's open-source alternative to Apple's iOS, which is used on iPhones and iPads. Google's mobile operating system is used on devices from the HTC Evo to the upcoming Xoom tablet computer from Motorola.
You can watch a demo of Honeycomb on YouTube, courtesy of PC Magazine. There's a promotional video with more close-ups, too.
MIT's Technology Review says Honeycomb may challenge the iPad:
"Rather than offering a radical departure from the vision introduced by Apple, the company's tablet-flavored version of its Android mobile operating system -- dubbed Honeycomb -- brings a handful of slick new user-interface features, designed for the more powerful hardware of a tablet. It also significantly streamlines the experience of installing apps on a tablet."
Friday, February 4, 2011
Google unveils Web-based Android Market for phones, tablets
By Mark Milian, CNN
Mountain View, California (CNN) -- As Google prepares to add a new category to its arsenal of portable devices with tablets, the company's mobile team is deploying ways to better tie its different systems together.
It might not come as a surprise that the internet giant is using the Web to do that.
Like smartphones, this new breed of tablets will run Android, an operating system developed by Google. This next version of Android, called 3.0 or Honeycomb, is its first designed for tablets but will also run on smartphones. Like Apple does with its closed system, Honeycomb will let users buy applications on computers and synchronize them between their Google gadgets.
Using the Android Market website in a browser, you can browse, buy and download apps, Google announced at a news conference on the company's main campus here on Wednesday.
From the website, users can beam the app to any number of phones or tablets connected to their accounts. The phone begins downloading the app almost instantly. This feature has already been enabled automatically on Android phones.
Previously, you'd have to open the Android app on a smartphone in order to search for and download programs. Synchronizing between other family members' phones, for example, was a hassle.
In Apple's controlled habitat, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad share information and apps via a central hub in the iTunes software.
"There are no wires, no syncing to computers, none of that kind of nonsense," Chris Yerga, Android's engineering director for cloud services, said onstage at the Android event. "Everything just works seamlessly, syncing between the two."
The announcement reinforces Google's philosophy of doing everything over the internet, or "cloud" in industry parlance. Android already synchronizes personal information such as e-mail and contact lists through the Web.
"It's the cloud that makes the experience seamless," said Andy Rubin, who leads Android development.
But the synchronization features will mean little if Google can't persuade smartphone customers to purchase upcoming Android tablets. So much of Wednesday's event was focused on a walkthrough of new features that will be available to these devices.
A new app called Music brings the Android system closer in line with Apple's iPod-iPhone-iPad model. Albums and songs are organized in a screen with a heavy emphasis on cover artwork.
Honeycomb also has a live video chat function that will let tablet users talk with other people who are using Gmail on a computer. Apple's portable devices with FaceTime can talk only to Mac computers running a beta program or using Skype's app. Skype does not offer a video-calling app for Android.
The new Android software includes improved multitasking functionality, so you can see a window of what apps you were previously using looked like when you closed out of them. All of this runs thanks to a combination of hardware-acceleration techniques for smooth animations.These techniques also help drive more powerful games.
Google's partners showed a game called "Monster Madness," which is based on a game originally developed for the PlayStation 3. Developers said they didn't need to make major alterations to get it to work on the tablet. They also showed an action-packed, medieval-themed game that taps into the hardware's multicore processors.
Google also attempted to woo attendees and people watching the event's online video stream with a slew of new apps designed specifically for tablets. CNN announced onstage it will offer an Android app with iReport functions and live video capabilities.
The tablets also will be able to run all of Android's 130,000 apps designed for smartphone-sized screens. The apps will fill the tablets' larger screens.
"We've spent a significant amount of effort making sure that existing Android apps run well on tablets," Hugo Barra, Android's director of product management, said onstage.
The first tablet to launch with the new version of Android is Motorola's Xoom, which debuts this month. An exact release date and pricing have not been set.
A Honeycomb tablet from LG, called the G-Slate, will come out in March, T-Mobile USA announced Tuesday evening.
In addition to a camera on the front used for video chatting, that device has a pair of cameras on the back for capturing high-definition 3-D photos and video. You'll need 3-D glasses in order to see the video on the tablet's screen.
T-Mobile and AT&T also announced more information on new Android phones this week, none of which will run the Honeycomb software at first.
Mountain View, California (CNN) -- As Google prepares to add a new category to its arsenal of portable devices with tablets, the company's mobile team is deploying ways to better tie its different systems together.
It might not come as a surprise that the internet giant is using the Web to do that.
Like smartphones, this new breed of tablets will run Android, an operating system developed by Google. This next version of Android, called 3.0 or Honeycomb, is its first designed for tablets but will also run on smartphones. Like Apple does with its closed system, Honeycomb will let users buy applications on computers and synchronize them between their Google gadgets.
Using the Android Market website in a browser, you can browse, buy and download apps, Google announced at a news conference on the company's main campus here on Wednesday.
From the website, users can beam the app to any number of phones or tablets connected to their accounts. The phone begins downloading the app almost instantly. This feature has already been enabled automatically on Android phones.
Previously, you'd have to open the Android app on a smartphone in order to search for and download programs. Synchronizing between other family members' phones, for example, was a hassle.
In Apple's controlled habitat, the iPhone, iPod Touch and iPad share information and apps via a central hub in the iTunes software.
"There are no wires, no syncing to computers, none of that kind of nonsense," Chris Yerga, Android's engineering director for cloud services, said onstage at the Android event. "Everything just works seamlessly, syncing between the two."
The announcement reinforces Google's philosophy of doing everything over the internet, or "cloud" in industry parlance. Android already synchronizes personal information such as e-mail and contact lists through the Web.
"It's the cloud that makes the experience seamless," said Andy Rubin, who leads Android development.
But the synchronization features will mean little if Google can't persuade smartphone customers to purchase upcoming Android tablets. So much of Wednesday's event was focused on a walkthrough of new features that will be available to these devices.
A new app called Music brings the Android system closer in line with Apple's iPod-iPhone-iPad model. Albums and songs are organized in a screen with a heavy emphasis on cover artwork.
Honeycomb also has a live video chat function that will let tablet users talk with other people who are using Gmail on a computer. Apple's portable devices with FaceTime can talk only to Mac computers running a beta program or using Skype's app. Skype does not offer a video-calling app for Android.
The new Android software includes improved multitasking functionality, so you can see a window of what apps you were previously using looked like when you closed out of them. All of this runs thanks to a combination of hardware-acceleration techniques for smooth animations.These techniques also help drive more powerful games.
Google's partners showed a game called "Monster Madness," which is based on a game originally developed for the PlayStation 3. Developers said they didn't need to make major alterations to get it to work on the tablet. They also showed an action-packed, medieval-themed game that taps into the hardware's multicore processors.
Google also attempted to woo attendees and people watching the event's online video stream with a slew of new apps designed specifically for tablets. CNN announced onstage it will offer an Android app with iReport functions and live video capabilities.
The tablets also will be able to run all of Android's 130,000 apps designed for smartphone-sized screens. The apps will fill the tablets' larger screens.
"We've spent a significant amount of effort making sure that existing Android apps run well on tablets," Hugo Barra, Android's director of product management, said onstage.
The first tablet to launch with the new version of Android is Motorola's Xoom, which debuts this month. An exact release date and pricing have not been set.
A Honeycomb tablet from LG, called the G-Slate, will come out in March, T-Mobile USA announced Tuesday evening.
In addition to a camera on the front used for video chatting, that device has a pair of cameras on the back for capturing high-definition 3-D photos and video. You'll need 3-D glasses in order to see the video on the tablet's screen.
T-Mobile and AT&T also announced more information on new Android phones this week, none of which will run the Honeycomb software at first.
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)