
Google shows off Android 3.0, the 'Entirely for Tablet' Honeycomb (video) - tomeast
http://www.engadget.com/2011/01/05/google-shows-off-android-3-0-the-entirely-for-tablet-honeycom/
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cryptoz
I am so excited for the future. It's so clear to me that tablets are a
stepping stone, and a very very exciting one. They're going to be the first
time a consumer computer has lived up to their dreams and expectations of the
future of computing: it works, it's fast, it's easy, it's safe and it's _fun_.
Using Windows on a desktop is none of those things. It turns out that iPad was
a glorious thing; not in that it was physically incredible, but that it opened
up a world that Google understands and is preparing for. We're going to have
Android and iOS running HTML5 applications (and native apps of course) on
nearly every device in just a few years.

Guys, that promised future is coming!

~~~
blantonl
Mark my words. Google and Apple merge in the next two years.

Apple has the flash (no pun intended) and user interface.

Google has the platform and infrastructure.

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lwat
Wanna bet? I'll give you 3 to 1 odds.

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mishmash
Might I suggest <http://www.longbets.org/>

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TomOfTTB
More and more I'm forced to face the reality that ChromeOS is doomed.

Conceptually I still like the IDEA of ChromeOS more but I just can't see a
consumer choosing what is essentially a browser over something like this.

My only hope is that Google will try and move Android to a place where Web
Apps are just as powerful as native apps on the platform.

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callahad
I think ChromeOS could succeed in "kiosk" situations -- libraries, coffee
shops, hotel lobbies, etc. Verified boot and automatic updates would be a boon
for maintenance concerns, while customers would be much more likely to trust
Google than a random Windows kiosk with a shoddy browser and questionable
shell.

Of course, kiosks / public access terminals may be as unnecessary as phone
booths once we're all carrying personal tablets...

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sjs
There are a _lot_ of people outside of the 1st world's lavish lifestyle and
deep pockets (filled also with $500 gadgets). If you live in the USA you don't
even have to leave your own country to see the other side.

Strike the last sentence and I agree with your comment wholeheartedly.

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netcan
Interestingly, outside the "1st world" mobile phones are quite common. The
speed at which this technology trickled down is amazing, about ten years from
yuppies in major cities to subsistence farmers in failed states. Even more
amazing is penetration. Most things just don't go that far down the economic
ladder at all. Basic, fundamental things like vaccination, artificial
fertilizers, electricity or regular phone lines which our grandparents took
for granted have been outpaced by mobile phones in many places.

Tablets may be similar enough to mobile phone to hope that the same economics
apply and we might see the <$3-a-day majority benefiting by 2020. Hopefully.

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archgrove
One can't really tell from a promotional video, but the main thing that stands
out to me is the improved home screen over iPad. It's too "technical" to be
mass market in this version; viz. "Books \n 3x3" type stuff - my parents won't
know what 3x3 means, even after explanation. Even I'm only guessing is the
size the widget takes on the home screen. However, assuming they fix that,
it's rather an improvement on Apple's iOS SpringBoard, which is looking rather
dated (alongside their notification system). Here's to competition
accelerating an upgrade in iOS 5!

The rest of the applications, one can't really tell in short clip. A lot of
them - mail, video chat etc - seem very similar to what one would find
elsewhere, except with the Honeycomb chrome (take it or leave it, as personal
preference dictates). In others, I worry they've gone for eye candy over
usability. For example, in "Books", the circular scroll is all very well, but
I can't see any way of telling how far through your collection you are, nor
where the book you want might be. Of course, the is prerelease promo, so it
might be obvious in the real thing. What most people don't seem to get is that
Apple tend to use eye candy _only when it's useful_ \- not just to look like
something in Minority Report. Even they don't get it right all the time (I'm
looking at you, Time Machine animation!). Eye candy is really cool for
promotional videos, but when you're trying to use the application for the
4562nd time you really hope that it's added just to enhance usability, rather
than impress CES visitors.

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drivebyacct2
Not enough eye candy, too much eye candy. And the usual Android is too hard.
Too bad this logic has been wrong for the last two years of Android and I'm
willing to bet it will continue to be wrong.

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ugh
It so frustrating to discuss about Android (or iOS). Some people will take the
slightest criticism and interpret it as platform bashing. The grandparent
never claimed that Android is doomed because it has too much eye candy.

Eye candy is damn hard to get right. It’s easy to have too little or too much
or to be kitschy. Apple seems to be really into kitsch and Google seems to be
really fond of doing too much lately. (You can’t really tell from the video,
though. I would love to see some extended demo or a guided tour.)

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oneplusone
Man, functionality aside since I haven't used it, it is not very impressive. I
would describe it as ugly as sin. It looks like the graphics were all thrown
together in an afternoon. I hope it is placeholder.

\- They replaced the nice soft gray/blue Chrome UI with a harsh gray one.

-The keyboard buttons are flat and lifeless.

-Arrows for selecting text has no depth and high contrast border.

-The page turning looks like something from the 90s

-The Youtube videos pop in from the left

This has really set my expectations low for what was suppose to be a
significant UI upgrade. As a designer this makes me cringe.

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kenjackson
Really? I'm no Android fan, and I expected it to be impressive (Honeycomb that
is) -- this meets expectations.

Everyone around me is buzzing about this. iPad2 had better come strong (Apple
usually does, but Android is moving so fast!).

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Xuzz
You can't argue with the page turning, though. I have no idea how the Google
engineers turn a page, since it's nothing like anyone else does it (or iBooks,
for that matter).

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aaronbrethorst
This looks fantastic, but I'm concerned about what isn't being discussed:
namely, what happens to small form factor devices in the Android 3.0 timeline,
like my Nexus S?

Is Google going to pull an Apple: temporarily bifurcating Android between
tablets and phones, and then later reunite them? Or is Honeycomb going to ship
for phones, too, but with less of the large-screen optimized UI goodness?

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yardie
It certainly appears that way. With the high requirements for Honeycomb and no
phones on the market that currently meet that requirement I think it will be a
while before the releases are synchronous.

Anyway my contract is just about up and this CES is not making me look forward
to renewal. CES has a way of blasting out announcements for really great
sounding products and then what actually ships may be selective or may be
cancelled entirely. No one ever remembers the products from the last CES that
never arrived.

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miah_
As a long time Android user I'm definitely looking forward to a tablet. I've
been holding off on buying anything until a good tablet comes out. I really
wish I could watch this video without an ad preventing me from reading all the
text in the video so I knew more about what to look for and not just stare at
the omg eye candy.

As far as ChromeOS being dead, I dunno. I have been playing with my cr48 a few
weeks now and love it. Its a great system for most things. The things it
prevents me from doing well right now (ssh to hosts and doing dev/support) are
minor.

In general I have a browser, IM App, and terminal open on my computer. If a
good and secure way to remotely manage hosts via ssh is added into ChromeOS it
will quickly become my goto system that I drag everywhere with me. I doubt I
would ever say that for a tablet, unless its _really_ good and has fantastic
keyboard support. I just hate having to deal with wireless keyboards and their
aaa batteries that never seem to last long enough.

*edit: i can spell

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blinkingled
They seem to have checked all the right boxes on this one - Eye Candy, Tablet
UI optimizations, Video Chat (Great stuff if it works well - all GTalk users
even on desktop can use this), No physical buttons, Dual Core minimum (easier
on devs - they don't have to worry about crappy hardware), HTML5.

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roadnottaken
The demo is nice, but I'd like to see it running on real hardware.

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zachallaun
I can only hope that Android 3.0 will be available on the swath of 2.1 and 2.2
tablets that have been released thus far. Neither of those operating systems
were well optimized for tablet use.

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trotsky
It appears google is requiring a dual core cpu for Honeycomb. So it's unlikely
you'll see official updates for them. Even tablets that skipped market access
and such probably won't upgrade if there is a serious performance penalty, and
it's hard to believe google would make that restriction if it was unnecessary.

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Kylekramer
There has been plenty of claims that Google is going to limiting hardware with
the next OS update, and those are always been squashed. I mean, when has
Google ever shown a even an inkling of trying to lock down Android? I'd be
surprised if they could do it even if they wanted to.

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guelo
In order for a manufacturer to be able to include the Market on their device
Google imposes a bunch of hardware restrictions. For Gingerbread the
restrictions include

    
    
      - the size and density of the screen
      - it has to have a touchscreen
      - it has to have more than 128MB RAM and 150MB flash
      - it has to ship with a 1GB or greater sdcard installed
      - home, menu and back buttons required
      - all kinds of restrictions on the accelerometer,magnenometer, gps, gyro, etc
      - it has to have fast network capability
      - the camera has to be 2 megapixels or greater
      - it has to have USB
    

I don't see why they wouldn't be able to add a dual-core cpu as a requirement

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Kylekramer
It is quite a jump from needing a pittance of RAM, touchscreen, connectivity,
and a SD card to requiring a dual core. Android's model requires large market
penetration, and requiring a dual core doesn't really make sense.

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blinkingled
There's no hard minimum processor requirement for Honeycomb. Via
<http://twitter.com/#!/morrildl/status/22845294886518785>

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Kylekramer
Torn. I like that it isn't just a grid of icons and some apps with split
views, but I doubt Google can really pull off a great tablet OS by forking
Android. I still think there needs to be an OS built from the ground up to be
a tablet and a tablet only. I want an revolution like the iPhone was went it
was originally announced, not a half hearted evolution.

~~~
callahad
I'd be curious to hear your thoughts on the iPad.

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panacea
(You didn't ask me personally, but here are mine)

I bought the original iPhone on day one (my upgrade from the original Motorola
Razr). I vociferously read about technology and gadgets, but am rarely
compelled to act on my consumer desires unless I feel like I'm 'gaming' the
system by buying at the optimum time and also by defeating the endless upgrade
cycle prompts.

I succumbed last year and purchased an iPad while on holiday in The States
(ostensibly because of the cheaper price compared to the UK and because my
wife wanted to watch Mad Men on vacation).

In truth it was because even though the iPad just seemed to be an enlarged
iPod Touch, Apple had certainly hit a home run with the (dare I say it)
'revolutionary' first iPhone, and I wanted to see what the fuss was about.

It immediately made my first generation iPhone obsolete for kicking back at
home and mucking about on a touch-screen device, but it certainly wasn't a
revolutionary device. It really was just a scaled-up less-portable (read: less
useful) version of the original iPhone.

I got an iPhone 4 for christmas and it's a beautiful upgrade from iPhone 1.
And it immediately relegated the iPad to 'sitting on the shelf' status in our
flat.

This promo video, however teaser/vaporware-like it is, has me rethinking my
current reliance on the Apple ecosystem.

It's feels a bit revolutionary... like the first iPhone. A re-imagining of on
OS _specifically_ designed for the new form factor. The iPad OS isn't that
beast... Apple were first to market with a credible tablet because the initial
iPhone OS, albeit upscaled, did a passable job.

For the first time in years, I'm interested in my next device being outside
the Apple Walled City.

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tiles
My impression of the video was that Android 3.0 applications will be entirely
a Google stack... where does that leave developers?

I applaud Google for finally taking on the role of owning the whole OS
experience, like Apple, but if they are going to do this then they'll also be
judged on those merits. I give Android OS a lot of leeway for what it lacks by
saying "a developer can fill that niche"... It looks like their tablet will be
much closer to an iPad experience in having a singular vision.

~~~
rlmw
I imagine they're just showing off their programs for the platform. Google
have been touting Android as an 'open' platform, I doubt they're going to turn
back at this stage.

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enjo
I'm not particularly in the know, but I think it's important to keep in mind
that this isn't a "normal" platform release. Honeycomb is still a bit
immature, we're not expecting to see shipping devices for another 3-6 months
(Motorola is simply saying "Q2" at this point from what I can tell).

It's a bit too early for 3rd party developers to be invited to the party I
think.

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CitizenKane
I'm really impressed by the video, it looks like there are a lot of cool ideas
and the tablet form factor really brings the homescreen widgets that android
has to life.

That being said, I find the prospect of this not ending up on Android phones
disappointing. Android 2.2 is fantastic to use but definitely needs some love
in terms of UI.

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orangecat
It's hard to tell from a 60 second video, but that looks pretty darn awesome.
Like a MovieOS(tm) that actually works.

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dkl
First, I had to watch an annoying commercial. Then, there was an ad overlay to
the video that obscured part of the video. Goddamn that's annoying, so I
didn't watch.

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melvinram
Someone has to pay the bill for the video bandwidth.

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bkudria
Except this video is essentially an advertisement.

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zmitri
The look and feel remind me very much of Bumptop. Looks like a more
complicated, although more effective way to organize the tablet versus the
iPad.

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flip
It looks great, but... Come on... Bring back single tasking...

