Okay Geek Farm
Android 3.0 Honeycomb - Guided video tours
Brandon Davenport
It’s been a long haul into the tablet game for other manufactures since Apple’s release of the iPad (and trust us, 6 months is a “long haul” in the tech industry). We knew Google, Microsoft, Palm and all major hardware companies we’re going to climb the hill where Apple managed to sneak up and perch their flag on the tippy top, but nothing could prepare us for the onslaught of tablet hype that emerged just a few months earlier.
Skip forward and CES 2011 rolls around the corner, bringing the consumer tech industry to life, and along with it hopes that all of the rumors and speculation would hold true, and for the majority it did — Microsoft demoed a few neat “tablet-like” devices (more hybrid laptops than anything else) at the Keynote in Vegas, and they were sprawled all over the giant Microsoft castle at CES (they call it a “booth”).
The morning of CES 2011 day one, the news of a new tablet OS called “Honeycomb” burst to life, igniting hopes that there will be a new tablet OS that will rival Apple’s iOS in a very real way. The fact that Google created a tablet specific OS isn’t all that surprising, but when you take a look at the OS for the first time, you know they mean business. This isn’t “skinning” Android for the phone, or simply re-doing the visual elements — we have a real feeling a lot of work went into this and it’s a real sign that this is an exciting time in the tablet market.
What’s new in Honeycomb?
Observations: it’s not the “prettiest” interface on the market, but in terms of functionality it’s running circles around what’s available, from what we can see in the videos of course. Not much is shown in this first clip, but the rest is pretty well demoed in the next few videos. One big thing we noticed is how well widgets are introduced into Honeycomb. A view where you can see your screens “expose style” and manage widgets really easily and great organization of available widgets.
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