Google gives a taste of Honeycomb 3.0 with a preview of its Android 3.0 Preview SDK. Larry Dignan has more in his blog.
Android 3.0 is focused on giving better performance to devices with larger screens - tablets. It offers a new virtual and “holographic” UI design, as well as a content-focused interaction model. According to Google it offers "refined multitasking, rich notifications, Home screen customization, widgets, and more."
Android 3.0 offers five customizeable home screens with each screen using a grid to maintain spacial organization. Users can play with Home screen widgets, app shortcuts, and wallpapers.
Google touts multitasking as a key strength of Android 3.0
The keyboard has been redesigned and new keys, such as Tab, have been added.
Standard apps include browser, camera and gallery, contacts, and email.
The camera app.
For developers, Android 3.0 is trying out a new framework created for tablet apps. It will break the Activities of their applications into subcomponents or fragments.
Android 3.0 has updated its home screen widgets to offer more types of content and new modes of interaction with users.
Android 3.0 now offers a multi-select mode that lets developers choose multiple items. It also will have a system-wide Clipboard that allows copying any type of data into and out of their applications.
Google touts multitasking as a key strength of Android 3.0
