Today, Google gave us a brief view of the next version of Andoid – Honeycomb. Honeycomb has been designed specifically with the tablet in mind and everything has been optimised for the tablet environment.
The new features include:
- Brand new User Interface
- New 2D and 3D Widget designs – reusable for developers
- New Notifications design
- Video chat
- Hardware acceleration available for 2D and 3D graphics
- Android market changes
The new User Interface includes what Google is calling “fragments”. The idea behind fragments is essentially, that you can have several panes of content available on screen at the same time. Each of these panes, or “fragments”, represents what would, on your phone, be one entire screen – for example: a list of email folders, or a email conversation thread. With Honeycomb, you can view two or, possibly, more than one fragment on the screen at the same time. This should allow developers to develop apps which are not only optimised for tablets, but which also work seamlessly on phone devices. On the phone there will be one fragment available at a time, but on the table there will be more to see simultaneously.
Included in Honeycomb are also some new widget designs. There are a number of 2D and 3D widget designs which developers can re-use for their own widgets.
Notfications will now allow developers to include more information. For example, if I receive a new text message, the notification will not only contain a preview of the message content but will also have a tiny thumbnail showing the photo of the contact who sent me the message.
Perhaps one of the most exciting announcements Google made today is the news about changes to the Android market website. This isn’t specific to Honeycomb but, since the announcement was made as part of the Honeycomb preview, I’m going to include it here.
First of all, users can now purchase and install apps from the market website. When you click on the “Install” or “Purchase” links you get a popup asking you which of your registered devices you want to install it on. Having completed the process of installing or purchasing the app, your device will automatically start downloading and installing the app.
Another important change Google has made to the market is allowing users to search from the market web page. Up until now it has only been possible to browse the featured apps, but there is now not only a search option, but also an advanced search will allows users to filter by device, paid or free and popularity.
The other major change is the announcement that in-app purchasing is going to be available for developers as another way of monetising their apps.
These market changes are very important ones. There have been many complaints about how the market does not make app discovery as easy as it should be. The changes to the market website go a very long way to addressing those issues.
During the webcast, Google announced the new market was now live at market.android.com but, while it does look live, it still seems buggy – I was unable to sign in.
Despite these teething problems it seem like there are some exciting times ahead for Android users and developers alike.
