Android 3.0 Honeycomb Appears on Motorola Tablet
|
|
CREDIT: Engadget |
Our first look at the upcoming version of Android 3.0 Honeycomb came at a tech conference today, which simultaneously led to the reveal of Motorola's tablet prototype.
Android head Andy Rubin demonstrated Android Honeycomb at the All Things D Dive Into Mobile conference today, showing that it has been redesigned completely with tablets in mind. It certainly made better use of the extra screen real estate.
Rubin didn't show too much, but it was apparent that the app grid and the Gmail app had been tweaked for tablet use. He did confirm that the Motorola tablet has video chat capabilities, has an NVIDIA processor (likely meaning the Tegra 2 chip) and a separate "dual core 3-D processor."
The Android 3.0 Honeycomb interface almost appears to hark back to the desktop interface, with a toolbar running the length of the bottom of the screen. The demo didn't give a lot of indication how the toolbar is used, but it's clear that widgets and shortcuts will feature prominently.
Rubin said that users will be able to "fragment" apps into separate panes, similar to how computers view several different things in windows. For instance, a Honeycomb tablet will be able to view the inbox and individual emails of an email app in two separate panes, whereas Android phones can only view one at a time.
The only release date mentioned for Honeycomb was "next year," without any clarification. Rumors have indicated that Motorola's tablet will be out sometime in the first half of 2011.
