UPDATED 12:41 EDT / JANUARY 27 2011

Preview SDK Tools for Android 3.0 Honeycomb, a Focus on User Interface and Design

android3_specsNow that we’ve been waiting for Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) for quite a while every little thing is magic, especially when it comes to preparing for the eventual release. Thus, when we heard about the release of a preview SDK for the system, we figured we’d introduce it to everyone.

Developers will especially be curious about this development as it’ll give them a chance to check their current software to make sure that it will still run on the upgraded OS. While the details may be lost on customers, the upshot is that Google is making sure that when they update their phones, the developers of their favorite apps will already be ahead of the curve.

So, without further adieu, if you happen to be a developer (or just curious) there’s a post on the Android Dveloper’s blog that outlines the highlights of this:

UI framework for creating great apps for larger screen devices: Developers can use a new UI components, new themes, richer widgets and notifications, drag and drop, and other new features to create rich and engaging apps for users on larger screen devices.

High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation framework lets developers add great visual effects to their apps. A built-in GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of common 2D rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers take advantage of a new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript.

Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with the best possible performance.

Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users.

New types of connectivity: New APIs for Bluetooth A2DP and HSP let applications offer audio streaming and headset control. Support for Bluetooth insecure socket connection lets applications connect to simple devices that may not have a user interface.

Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators manage devices more effectively.

For a much more complete overview, you can look at the Android 3.0 Platform Highlights.

One of the portions of Honeycomb that made the highlights and has been part of the expectation and hype is the 2D and 3D graphics, which continually get touted as a “holographic user interface.” In fact, we saw this in the most recent preview earlier this month. The holography of the interface seems to surround the leveraging of the 3D effect and giving a sort of interaction that’s not common to smartphones (very flat, very small screens) but could enhance how people focus on content within the screen. Right now, most handheld and mobile devices like smartphones and tablets take into account only the touch aspect; but giving the illusion of depth would allow an interface to “stack” presentation so that users can pick and pluck out elements.

Honeycomb spends a great deal of time on the interface. Design, hooks, and hardware acceleration, all geared towards allowing the OS and apps to take advantage of the aspects that make mobile devices so powerful—their mobility and small footprint—which has been their biggest obstacle in the past, their low power, difficulty multitasking, and very little screen real estate to play with while attempting to run multiple attention-grabbing applications at once.


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