Android Honeycomb: A Detailed Tour of Google’s Tablet OS
Google’s new Android Honeycomb OS will supply a complete new type of tablet experience. This is the lowdown on what it’s all about and what it’ll bring to the table.
New Google Tablet OS Arrives. Google’s Android operating system is about to get so much larger, literally.
Google took the wraps off Android Honeycomb, the newest version of its cell OS, on the Consumer Electronics Show in Vegas this week. So why serve up another new model when the final one, Android Gingerbread, is barely out of the oven? It is simple: Unlike Gingerbread, Honeycomb is not made to your phone.
Honeycomb, as Google explains it, is “constructed solely for tablet.” It’ll appear on devices like Motorola’s Xoom Android tablet and a slew of different merchandise set to launch soon. Make no mistake about it: The Android tablet military is right here, and it is ready to do battle sylvania tablet
Think of Honeycomb as the tablets’ secret weapon. Here is the lowdown on what it’s all about and what it’ll convey to the table.
Android Honeycomb: The Interface
The very first thing you discover about Honeycomb is that it’s a complete new experience from the Android we’ve come to know. The software program was “designed from the bottom up,” Google says, with a concentrate on delivering an enhanced model of Android made particularly for giant-kind gadgets.
Honeycomb incorporates a revamped interface Google engineers describe as “really digital and holographic.” Instead of hardware buttons, the software program features an on-screen navigation bar that seems at the backside of the display, regardless of which manner you orient the device. Easy multitasking and customization take middle stage. And the home display screen itself takes on a really different look from earlier smartphone-focused Android releases.
The updated appearance is partially due to the prominence of latest punched-up widgets, redesigned for a extra interactive experience: You can scroll via your inbox with the new Gmail widget, for example, or flick thru your upcoming appointments with the updated calendar widget. Honeycomb may also create a custom widget for any individual in your contact listing; once on your property display screen, it shows a complete stream of updates and exercise for that individual on all the providers where the two of you’re connected.
One query at the moment unanswered is how Honeycomb’s sturdy interface will have an effect on Android battery life. Thus far, things sound promising: Motorola, for its part, says its Xoom tablet can provide 10 hours of video playback on a single charge. Till a few of these units can be found to be examined out in the wild, though, it is tough to say what actual-world performance will likely be like.
This video, put together by T-Mobile to assist promote its upcoming LG G-Slate Honeycomb tablet, does a reasonably good job exhibiting the brand new interface in motion:
Android Honeycomb: Multipaned Apps
Apps in Honeycomb will be able to take full benefit of the tablet show dimension by expanding into multiple panes that show up facet-by-aspect on your screen. In the new Gmail app, for example, you possibly can pull up particular person messages while retaining an sylvania tablet energetic view of your inbox on-screen at the similar time. Different programs will have the ability to make the most of the a number of pane idea on their own phrases, as every developer sees fit.
Android Honeycomb: Video Chat
Whereas video chat has been obtainable in Android for some time now, via third-celebration instruments, Honeycomb will introduce an integrated solution using the Google Speak platform. With the faucet of an icon, you’ll pull up your checklist of friends and initiate voice or video chat with any of them — whether or not they’re online by way of a tablet or by a traditional PC.
Android Honeycomb: The Browser
Android’s stock browser will get a severe upgrade in Honeycomb. The app good points the ability to handle a number of tabs, computerized form-filling, personal looking, and Chrome-based mostly bookmark syncing. You too can access a scrollable checklist of your bookmarks right from your own home display, due to the included Honeycomb browser widget. All together, the up to date browser will certainly rival the functionalities supplied by the assorted third-occasion alternatives in the Android Market.
Android Honeycomb: All the things Else
There are numerous different nuances to the new Honeycomb OS, including a redesigned YouTube interface and a tablet-optimized version of Google’s eBooks marketplace. This closing video, produced by Google, reveals a few of these options as part of its overall preview of the Honeycomb release:
Google has but to announce a proper launch date for Honeycomb, however Motorola says its Xoom tablet — which is the flagship gadget Android engineers are utilizing to develop the software — will debut sometime inside this quarter. So if all goes as deliberate, the Android tablet army might be invading very soon.
This article originally appeared on https://androidtabnews2.wordpress.com/2011/11/25/latets-android-buzz-version-3-0/
