Android 3.0 Gingerbread Review and Preview

An official video promoting Android 3.0 Honeycomb has just appeared on YouTube, apparently without any accompanying fanfare from Google. It was on the Android Developers channel, but one would expect at least a blog post to show off the various nuances of the new interface. Actually, as I was writing this very paragraph, the video was taken down, so I’m guessing this was unintentional. (update: it was just displayed officially for the T-Mobile G-Slate) Over the last few days millions of smartphone owners will have no-doubt updated their Android handset to Android 2.2 FroYo, it now seems as if Google are concentrating on their next major OS update; Android 3.0 Gingerbread.

Gingerbread, which should be arriving late this year (Q4), will no doubt be Google’s answer to iPhone OS 4.0, details are pretty scarce at the moment, however we do at least know that there will be WebM support. We have now seen our first look at the OS, and I must say the interface looks more appealing then any other Android version.

We have embedded 5 screens at the end of the post, the screens show what appears to be Gingerbread carrying out voice dialing and voice activated Google search, on the whole the look of the OS is pretty similar to previous versions, however one noticeable change is the new and in my opinion improved button design.
Check out the screens below and let us know your thoughts, do you like the look of Google 3.0 Gingerbread?

Android 3.0 Video Preview



Android's purpose is to establish an open platform for developers to build innovative mobile apps. Three key components work together to realize this platform.

Good thing I downloaded the 720p version and got screenshots of all the interesting bits! We’ll have video for you momentarily, but for now, enjoy these screengrabs of Android 3.0.

Update: Google Officially Posts Android 3.0 Sneak Peak, Touts “Holographic” UI

Here we have the lock screen:

And the home screen; note the TechCrunch link there. Thanks for reading, Google!I’m a big fan. This is clearly the same type of desktop we saw on the Motorola unit Andy Rubin was playing with at All Things D. Nice big widgets and a four-corner layout for hot spots.

Next, moving over to another screen, this appears to be a collection of social widgets — follow your friends’ latest updates and so on.

The new Gmail interface Andy was demoing. If I remember correctly, this type of app should be able to be broken down to smaller widgets. Or something. Fragments, I think he said.

Google Talk interface and two-way video chat:


Google Maps, with more of the same black-and-grey theme:

Looks pretty solid, and looked nice in action. But we’ll probably get a hands-on soon, as Motorola is probably going to announce their Xoom tablet in just about an hour. We’ll update this as soon as video goes live.


Android Compatibility

Android's purpose is to establish an open platform for developers to build innovative mobile apps. Three key components work together to realize this platform.

The Android Compatibility Program defines the technical details of Android platform and provides tools used by OEMs to ensure that developers’ apps run on a variety of devices. The Android SDK provides built-in tools that Developers use to clearly state the device features their apps require. And Android Market shows apps only to those devices that can properly run them.

These pages describe the Android Compatibility Program and how to get access to compatibility information and tools. The latest version of the Android source code and compatibility program is 2.3, which corresponded to the Gingerbread branch.
Why build compatible Android devices?
Users want a customizable device.

A mobile phone is a highly personal, always-on, always-present gateway to the Internet. We haven't met a user yet who didn't want to customize it by extending its functionality. That's why Android was designed as a robust platform for running after-market applications.
Developers outnumber us all.

No device manufacturer can hope to write all the software that a person could conceivably need. We need third-party developers to write the apps users want, so the Android Open Source Project aims to make it as easy and open as possible for developers to build apps.
Everyone needs a common ecosystem.

Every line of code developers write to work around a particular phone's bug is a line of code that didn't add a new feature. The more compatible phones there are, the more apps there will be. By building a fully compatible Android device, you benefit from the huge pool of apps written for Android, while increasing the incentive for developers to build more of those apps.