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Jan

Hands-On Preview Of Android 3.0 'Honeycomb': The Android Tablet Era Begins Now

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Other Reviews, Reviews

Last Updated: July 24th, 2011

Honeycomb is one of the biggest updates in Android history, so naturally, I jumped at the chance to try it out via the newly released Android 3.0 "preview SDK." What I found certainly wasn't disappointing - though it's important to remember that this is just a preview, meaning that not everything is in working order (for example, the emulator is so slow it made me want to tear my hair out at times, not to mention the frequent force close messages). Join us below for our first impressions of the new UI elements and other features found in Android 3.0 "Honeycomb."

The emulator's bootscreen is the same as it was for Android 1.6, 2.1, 2.2, etc.

Jan

Honeycomb Logos Galore - Which One Do You Like The Most? [Poll]

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, Off-Topic

Buried deep in the depths of the Honeycomb SDK that was released yesterday, this Tron-inspired Honeycomb logo, which, as we later found out, was actually part of the Honeycomb Easter egg. Whether this logo is THE Honeycomb logo or not remains to be proven, but it is definitely official, as it came straight from the SDK. Judging by my reddit submission, many of you liked it quite a bit but had ideas of your own of how it could be modified to be more in tune with the Android theme. Here are some of the mods.

Original

Green by gcalpo

Closer to Android colors.

Jan

Android Team Acknowledges Honeycomb Emulator Performance Problems, Hard At Work On Fixes

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Development, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

The Honeycomb SDK preview, allowing everyone to take a peek and play around with Honeycomb using the Android emulator, was launched yesterday, but after we got past the initial excitement, we found that the emulator itself was dog slow and pretty much unusable. In fact, it was so frustrating to use it that I wanted to punch walls and rip out my hair after 5 minutes with it. And I'm not even going to talk about orientation problems - how the Android team managed to ship the SDK with orientation broken by default (there is a fix for it in the Settings > Display) is beyond me and beyond the scope of this article.

Jan

Easter Eggs And Developer Humor In Android 3.0 "Honeycomb" APIs: Tron Bee, Rez, fyiWillBeAdvancedByHostKThx()

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News, Off-Topic

Last Updated: January 28th, 2011

The Android team sure has a sense of humor. Previously, in the Froyo SDK, besides tons of awesome code, they've also added a function called wtf() (What a Terrible Failure) and an even more hilarious isUserAMonkey() that returns true if the user interface is currently being messed with by a monkey.

Examining the Honeycomb SDK docs released earlier today, armed with a hint from Roman Nurik, I found the following gem: fyiWillBeAdvancedByHostKThx(). The docs are not online yet, but if you've downloaded the SDK, you can find this function at android-sdk/docs/reference/android/widget/

AdapterViewAnimator.html#fyiWillBeAdvancedByHostKThx(). What it does doesn't matter (it's actually a legitimate function), but its name is hilarious.

Jan

Motorola CEO Sanjay Jha: Atrix 4G, 3G XOOM Coming At The End Of February; Droid Bionic, LTE XOOM In Q2

Posted by Jaroslav Stekl in Atrix 4G (Olympus), Bionic, Motorola, News, XOOM

You could say Motorola's earnings call ended on a high note - the company's CEO, Sanjay Jha, told analysts that the Atrix 4G will be launching at the end of February, as will the 3G version of the XOOM. That doesn't quite line up with the rumors we've been hearing about a February 17th release, and Jha later added that the XOOM might even be bumped to a release in March if things don't go according to plan. Bummer.

As for the Droid Bionic and the LTE-capable version of the XOOM, Sanjay said those devices should arrive at the end of Q2.

Jan

Android 3.0 Honeycomb Gets Huge Feature Breakdown, Preview SDK Released

Posted by David Ruddock in Android OS, Development, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

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.

Jan

[Updated: Registration Opens February 7th] Google I/O 2011 Site Goes Live, Confirms Increased Pricing, Includes Sessions On Google TV Apps, Honeycomb

Posted by Artem Russakovskii in Android OS, Google, Google TV, Honeycomb 3.0/3.1/3.2, News

Every year, Google takes over the Moscone Center in San Francisco (a convenient train ride away from me) and hosts a full-blown conference called Google I/O. The usual schedule consists of 2 opening keynotes followed by presentations and demos related to all kinds of Google technologies. Google I/O also gives you an excellent chance to mingle with developers from all over the world, network, and exchange contact information. My favorite part is something called Fireside Chats, where developers from a specific team in Google sit around, talk about their product, and answer questions. Oh, and of course, the swag and t-shirts with secret QR codes.

Jan

Motorola XOOM To Launch On February 17th, Confirmed By Internal Best Buy Document

Posted by Abhiroop Basu in Motorola, News, XOOM

An eager reader forwarded an internal Best Buy memo to Engadget which indicates, in no uncertain terms, that the Motorola XOOM tablet is set to launch at Best Buy on February 17th.

A leak from Verizon has confirmed that the unsubsidized price of the XOOM will be $799. However, Best Buy may be retailing the device for an altogether different price.

The XOOM is an important device for both Motorola and Google because it will be the first tablet to run Android 3.0 Honeycomb, an iteration of the Android OS that supports the tablet form factor. Google rubber-stamped their approval over this product when Andy Rubin demoed Honeycomb on the XOOM at AllThingsD's D:Dive Into Mobile.

Jan

Toshiba's Tablet Gets A Super Cool Teaser Site, Still Doesn't Know What To Call Itself

Posted by David Ruddock in News, Thrive / Regza / Antares / AT100, Toshiba

Last Updated: April 16th, 2011

Toshiba's Android tablet (it remains unnamed) just got an awesome teaser site, complete with specs, 360-degree view, gallery, and confirmation that the device will be running Honeycomb at launch.

We got some personal time with the Toshiba tablet back at CES, and were thoroughly impressed with its tactile rubber finish and large, glossy display. We'll give you a quick refresh on the specs:

10.1" display
Tegra 2 dual-core processor
Android 3.0 Honeycomb
2MP front facing camera
Stereo Speakers
Landscape mode dock
HDMI out
USB 2.0 port
MicroUSB port
Headphone and microphone jacks
User-replaceable battery
Combined volume, screen orientation, and power buttons
Full-size SD card slot

The Toshiba tablet is definitely packing some serious heat in the features department, and it's only the second Android tablet I've seen that I might genuinely be interested in buying.

Jan

The Beautiful Honeycomb Clock Widget Hits The Market

Posted by Aaron Gingrich in Applications, Apps/Games, News

Remember the mind-blowing Honeycomb UI that we saw a preview of during CES? Well, the absolutely beautiful clock widget from the update is now available for download. The free version offers the standard blue widget we saw on video, while the $1 paid version offers customizable colors. As our friends at Droid-Life point out, this marks the second app available that provides a taste of Honeycomb - we've been playing with the music player for some time now.

The official feature list:

Features:
- beautifully designed Android 3.0 Honeycomb replica clock
- click to open alarm clock settings(currently stock android only)
- clean futuristic look

Download:

Free: Paid: