Whetting our appetite
The release of Google's tablet-optimized version of Android - 3.0/Honeycomb - and the market response to it, will be one of the defining events of this tech year. As far as we're concerned there's no point in buying an Android tablet before that happens.
Android knows this and it's drip-feeding juicy morsels to the world without ever committing to a launch date. The latest helping comes via the Android developer site and details some features as well as offering some screen-shots.
Here's a concise summary of the features listed, but you can read the full descriptions on the blog.
- New UI - ‘holographic', more 3D
- System Bar, for global status and notifications - across the system and in all applications
- Action Bar, for application control - in all apps
- Recent Apps, for easy visual multitasking
- Redesigned keyboard - reshaped and new keys
- Improved text selection, copy and paste - press-hold and drag
- New connectivity options
- Updated set of standard apps
- New browser features
- Redesigned camera app
- Redesigned email and contacts apps