Stuff just keeps on piling up today – and I’m trying to work through my second playthrough of Mass Effect 2 on insanity (fourth playthrough overall). I have the sneaking suspicion, though, that nobody sympathises with my problems… Anywho, Google just unveiled the tablet user interface for Android 3.0, Honeycomb. Looks pretty decent I guess – somehow, it reminds me of Tron.
Now all we need is the tablet to run it on. Hopefully this video means it can’t be long before it’s out, but no tablets officially announced with it on. Bring on the Motorola press event at about 4pm PST (midnight GMT)
Motorola’s announcemed product is the Xoom tablet:
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9203539/Update_Motorola_laun…
In my country at least, Motorola have been beaten to the punch already:
http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/products.asp?c1=183&c2=…
(Most of these will be capable of running Android 3.0 when it is realeased).
There are already tablets to run Android 3.0 on, the hardware is ready, we are just waiitng for the OS. Meanwhile, you can run hardware such as this with Android 2.2 or 2.1 if you wish, just for the interim period.
Edited 2011-01-07 04:45 UTC
I’m not saying it’s not cool, ’cause it is, but again Google, like so many others, have totally missed the point. Unless of course they are only targeting “techy” users?
If I was an every day average run of the mill non-techy person – ie. the majority of the population – and just happened to be an Android phone user, and I went and bought an Android powered tablet expecting it to be familiar, get right in there and work, not have to learn anything new, etc, I’d be pretty pissed off.
Funky interface though. Lets just hope that in using it the thing is more polished than Chrome as an OS…
Or targeting anyone without preconceived ideas of what it should look like. Sure, it’s pretty different from the interface on Android phones – but then, it’s not a phone, so why shouldn’t it have an interface designed for a tablet instead?
Besides, who buys *any* device and expects to not have to learn anything new? I buy a new phone, the interface is different from the old one, even for the same manufacturer. Buy a new laptop, Window 7 has replaced XP, and the newer Office ‘ribbon’ has replaced the old menus and toolbars.
Give the poor guy a break. After the Apple fanatics disregarded Android for months on end as a crude toy for geeks, now that it’s incredibly popular, they have to come up with ever more contrived reasons to dismiss it. It’s like watching a child tripping over his own lies about not taking candy from the jar.
Incredibly entertaining for those of us who really don’t give a shit about any platform in particular (iPhone user here).
What an excellent example of indoctrination – I wonder if people like that have some parts of their brains replaced by tech
))
Oh, what are you playing btw? I finished ME2 on insanity with a Sentinel first, then an Adept. What a brilliant story!!! Can’t have enough of that game…
I just don’t get what he is complaining about. iOS apps have different interfaces on different form factors.
The only thing google is doing different is having a launcher better suited to tablets unlike the the ipads stretched iphone launcher.
According to Google, most Android phones are running version 2.2
http://www.h-online.com/open/news/item/Google-Most-Android-devices-…
Android’s Users Eclipse IPhone’s for First Time, comScore Says:
http://blogs.wsj.com/digits/2011/01/05/androids-users-eclipse-iphon…
“For the first time, more Americans say they are using cellphones powered by Google Inc.’s Android system than Apple Inc.’s iPhone, according to a new survey from technology-tracking firm comScore Inc.”
One wonders if the iPad might go the same way when Android 3.0 becomes available on ARM tablets.
http://www.computerworld.com/s/article/9203539/Update_Motorola_laun…
Apparently, this will commence in March.
I’m sure a lot of ARM tablets now available with Android 2.1 or 2.2 will be updated to Android 3.0, such as these perhaps:
http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/products.asp?c1=183&c2=…
Perhaps even Intel Atom tablets now available will also be upgradeable to Android 3.0, such as these perhaps:
http://www.pioneercomputers.com.au/products/products.asp?c1=183&c2=…
Edited 2011-01-07 04:21 UTC
I love my android but it would be stupid to use the exactly same single task oriented interface on a tablet. It’s a different form factor. It’s only natural to adapt the UI accordingly. Techy or not, as long as the fundamentals of interaction are kept consistent, people usually can get used to things pretty quickly.
I think you’re making exactly the mistake Microsoft made for years, trying to fit Windows on to tablets, and trying to make Windows CE look like its older brother. This is exactly the mistake that Apple didn’t make with the iPhone when they made it nothing like OS X.
I’d suggest that if you make a device that’s intuitive enough, it doesn’t have to be familiar.
It is OSX, just with an app on top, just like MS Surface is Vista with an app on top. But yea, when it come to interface, it’s better to rewrite all the UI for most form factors. But when it come to OS, let it scale, it’s good like that.
… from the iPad.
In a good or bad way? I’d say a good way. I quite like the UI in that video
Yes, thank god.
One can only hope.
Opinion: Android 3.0 is the star of CES
http://ces2011.techradar.com/2011/01/android-3-0-is-the-star-of-ces…
“Pretty, impressive
Pretty matters when you’re looking at something for hours on end: I switched to the Mac because I like the way it renders text. By making an OS that isn’t an iOS clone, by making something that’s the beautiful swan to Froyo’s ugly duckling, Honeycomb looks like something non-geeks would switch to because they really, really, really like the way it looks.
That’s an achievement for any tech firm; for a firm as engineering-driven as Google it’s a miracle.
It’s also terrible news for Microsoft. iOS on the iPad works because it’s a tablet OS. Honeycomb works because it’s a tablet OS (Froyo, for all its joys, isn’t: it’s a phone OS scaled up). Windows 7 tablets won’t work, because Windows 7 isn’t a tablet OS. Putting it in tablets is like sticking a beak on a dog, hurling it into the air and telling everyone it’s an eagle.
To keep the tenuous animal metaphors going a bit longer, in 2010 tablet computing was a one horse race: Apple had the horse, and everyone else was racing donkeys. In Honeycomb, it looks like we have another horse.”
Didn’t like chrome os, hate apple products, love my htc hero.
gimme gimme gimme.
I don’t see anything that’s particularly interesting. Basically its google apps, and a crappy interface for books. The main screen looks pretty similar to Android phones. Most of the interaction is quite clearly faked. We’ll see how smooth the UI is actually is. Given the lack of proper GPU acceleration I doubt it will be particularly good.
Is the Android 3.0 only intended for tablets (larger screens)?
Or is there going to be another Android 3.0 UI for mobile phones (smaller screens)?
I asked myself the same questions. Does it mean that there are now two distinct OSes from/sponsored by Google that are both called “Android”? I see confusion ahead. But since the lay user is not supposed to be doing system updates after having browsed a repository and picked a version, I guess everything will be OK.
It already happens, if I’m not misunderstood. Low-end Android phones still run 1.x, on which many apps designed for 2.x won’t work. Only the look&feel remains.
When I watch this video, Honeycomb really looks a lot like android 2.x, just slightly revised for a different form factor. So although they changed it at the core to make it fit for tablet use, maybe from an end-user point of view it won’t be much different in terms of look and feel. Kind of like iOS for iPhone vs iOS for iPad : incompatible, but similar.
Edited 2011-01-06 13:38 UTC
In an earlier interview Andy Rubin hinted that it would be for all kinds of devices. The idea was that applications should be able to take advantage of larger devices, while still looking good on smaller ones.
E.g you may have an Android activity to show the titles of incoming emails as the only thing that displays at the same on a small phone and click on the screen to read the mail or se folder lists in a new full screen activity. On a table the same application would be able to display the mail titles, the mail folders, and the actual mail all at the same time.
I liked that I saw.