The Android Developers Blog just announced the availability of a "preview" of the upcoming Android 3.0 SDK. Developers can start getting their Honeycomb on immediately, as the preview is available via the Android SDK and AVD manager as part of the Android SDK.

But even more exciting is the fact that the Android Developers page has been updated with a plethora of information regarding Honeycomb and its features. Where to begin?

What You Can See

The brief breakdown of Honeycomb's new elements according to Google:

  • New "holographic" UI
  • Bottom "system bar" for global status and notifications
  • Action bar for in-application controls
  • Redesigned home screen customization
  • Revamped "recent apps" menu
  • New keyboard
  • Improved text selection/copy/paste (multiselect, clipboard, and drag-and-drop)
  • Streamlined USB file transferring
  • Completely updated set of standard apps, including: Gmail, Calendar, Browser, Gallery,  and Contacts

Under The Hood

Developers have reason to be hugely excited about Honeycomb, as it's bringing some major (awesome) changes to the Android OS. Here are a few tidbits:

  • New UI framework specifically for creating tablet apps, and an entirely new UI framework for widgets
  • 2D and 3D hardware acceleration - including inside the browser
  • Native support for multicore processors
  • Existing Android apps can be integrated into the Honeycomb UI via a single attribute addition

Google is all over exhibiting the new features of 3.0, like the new Camera app:

Home screen customization has been streamlined with a new interface, as has the recent apps menu:

Also, the new browser looks amazing:

So does Gmail:

There are a ton of screenshots here, so take a look when you have a chance.

Source: Android Developers Blog