

Android 3.0 Platform Preview and Updated SDK Tools  - daleharvey
http://android-developers.blogspot.com/2011/01/android-30-platform-preview-and-updated.html

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blinkingled
From the article -

 _High-performance 2D and 3D graphics: A new property-based animation
framework lets developers add great visual effects to their apps. A built-in
GL renderer lets developers request hardware-acceleration of common 2D
rendering operations in their apps, across the entire app or only in specific
activities or views. For adding rich 3D scenes, developers take advantage of a
new 3D graphics engine called Renderscript._

This ought to do a lot of good for smoothness and sleek animations. The
selection ability is also great - looks like Apps can selectively enable
hardware acceleration based on their needs and underlying hardware
capabilities.

 _Support for multicore processor architectures: Android 3.0 is optimized to
run on either single- or dual-core processors, so that applications run with
the best possible performance._

Would be great to know what they did to optimize it for dual core - may be
some parallel GC tweaks, and some API additions for task bindings etc.

 _Rich multimedia: New multimedia features such as HTTP Live streaming
support, a pluggable DRM framework, and easy media file transfer through
MTP/PTP, give developers new ways to bring rich content to users._

DRM - NetFlix can finally shut up! I am not unhappy as it is pluggable - if I
don't want it I won't install the plug.

 _Enhancements for enterprise: New administrative policies, such as for
encrypted storage and password expiration, help enterprise administrators
manage devices more effectively._

Encrypted storage is too little too late unless I am misunderstanding it -
this looks like it's limited to storing Exchange data only, and not system
wide encryption. But they are going somewhere with it which is good.

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masklinn
> I am not unhappy as it is pluggable - if I don't want it I won't install the
> plug.

Pluggable does not mean "as a plugin". As a user, you won't be given any
choice in the matter (short of not installing the application at all of
course).

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blinkingled
Right - I meant if I don't need/install Netflix for example, the DRM plug
won't be on my phone. So yeah - I might get Netflix bundled on VZW phone but I
have a choice to go with another one that doesn't ship with it.

~~~
masklinn
> Right - I meant if I don't need/install Netflix for example, the DRM plug
> won't be on my phone.

There is no "DRM plug". "Pluggable DRM framework" means Google just provides
an architecture to implement their actual DRM, instead of forcing developers
to use Google's own DRMs. Nothing more, nothing less. Your declarations hardly
make sense.

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blinkingled
I don't understand what you are arguing here. Quoting from the docs - Android
3.0 includes an extensible DRM framework that lets applications manage
protected content according to a variety of DRM mechanisms that _may_ be
available...

All I am saying is it would still be possible for me to buy a Android device
whose maker doesn't implement any DRM at all. Or do you happen to know
something that I don't and Google is planning to provide a default mandatory
DRM for Android that everyone must carry?

~~~
micampe
_> All I am saying is it would still be possible for me to buy a Android
device whose maker doesn't implement any DRM at all._

Assuming you can find one that satisfies your requirement. Wanna bet? Hint:
DRM is part of newer ARM designs.

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blinkingled
DRM in ARM designs - It has long been there, nothing new. That hasn't changed
anything.
[http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/trustzon...](http://www.arm.com/products/processors/technologies/trustzone.php)
says all Cortex-A class CPUs support it.

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macrael
_Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) is a new version of the Android platform that is
designed from the ground up for devices with larger screen sizes, particularly
tablets._

Does this mean that 3.0 is not going to ship on phones? I haven't seen it
demoed on phones at all.

~~~
Lewisham
The UI for Honeycomb, as displayed, would not work on phones.

I get the impression that Honeycomb isn't going to be coming to phones. Why
Google is doing this is anyone's guess. Things that are deeply important, like
graphics acceleration, needs to filter down very quickly, but it looks like
Google are solely focused on tablets.

It's a really schizophrenic strategy, and I'm beginning to get the impression
no-one is really in charge there. Why does the Nexus One still not have 2.3?
Why are features that were slated for 2.3 now in 3.0, which doesn't even look
like it's coming to phones?

Google certainly aren't doing well at pleasing their current customers, and
they've certainly scared me away. I don't see why I should trust anything
about their upgrade path. The argument that you buy a handset for what it
does, rather than what it promises, is flimsy, but when you sell phones like
the Nexus One, and specifically promise upgrades, you're just lying.

EDIT: To those commenting about iOS 3.2, the difference is that iOS 3.2 didn't
really deliver any large features that meant iPhone didn't maintain parity.
Honeycomb, with graphics acceleration, overhauled UI etc. etc. will. Apple's
strategy was always a unified one, with a little detour to get it going on
tablets. Google appear to have completely switched tack.

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ergo98
_It's a really schizophrenic strategy_

It's the same strategy that virtually every maker is following now. It's
building out a platform, and its what you have to do to compete now.

 _I get the impression that Honeycomb isn't going to be coming to phones._

Their introductory video specifically says "built entirely for tablets". I
don't know what the credibility of it is, but there was the rumor that the
next iteration will be 2.4 and will be for handsets. Such a versioning
strategy makes sense.

Obviously they would share considerable amounts of code. The "shell" is just a
replaceable process.

 _Google certainly aren't doing well at pleasing their current customers_

It's clear that Google and its open handset partnership is perilously
understaffed right now, and they need to cut the umbilical going to whoever is
screwing up this opportunity.

Android, I think, succeeded far beyond Google's dreams (originally tablets and
PMPs were a no-go, but they've become a primary focus), but it seems to be
moving _far_ too slowly. A bunch of stuff they promised for 2.2 still isn't
there in 2.3, and is only rumored for 3.0. They need to seriously pick up the
pace.

~~~
wmf
_there was the rumor that the next iteration will be 2.4 and will be for
handsets. Such a versioning strategy makes sense._

Except for the part where 2.4 comes after 3.0...

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ergo98
...where 3.0 is the new tablet line and 2.4 is the next handset version of
2.3. There's nothing particularly confusing about that, and there's a logic.

And at 4.0 they would likely merge.

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jjcm
A video of Honeycomb's new "Holographic" UI:
<http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hPUGNCIozp0>

Not sure yet how well that theme will go over. When the Sense UI came out it
was certainly more flashy and pretty than the stock UI, but at a major cost to
battery life. Hopefully holographic has mitigated some of this.

It'll be interesting to see their UI builder in action once they finalize it.
One of the larger gripes I've heard from iOS developers turned android is the
lack of decent/fast UI construction tools.

~~~
tedreed
I've used my current phone with both SenseUI and without, and did not notice
any difference in battery life, FWIW.

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dpcan
This is great, but the phone market can't seem to keep up with these new
versions.

I was just at a wireless store last night and their one in-store device would
only run 1.6.

Their sold out device was only 2.1

The next device was still 2.1, "hopefully" 2.2

I asked if I could update, they said it wasn't possible and they didn't know
for sure when it would be.

As a developer, what am I supposed to do here? Develop for 2.2 and 3.0 and
just wait it out? Nope. I still have to make my games compatible with 1.6 if I
want to reach the majority of the market.

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Kylekramer
Not really. Targeting 2.1+ gets you 87% of the market [1], a clear majority.
Beyond that, does every Android thread have to talk about this? It is a well
covered topic, everyone knows the deal. Android has a problem with updates. It
isn't ideal, but things are what they are. We all know this. How about we
focus on what this post is about, a 3.0 preview.

1\. [http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-
ve...](http://developer.android.com/resources/dashboard/platform-
versions.html)

~~~
ZeroGravitas
Plus the smartphone market (and Android's share of the same) are growing
briskly so it makes sense to forge ahead, for both developers and Google. I
don't know if Google planned for this, or they just got lucky but even with
all the moaning and groaning about it they've got over 50% on 2.2 in 6 months.

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junkbit
The emulator is unusably slow on my Core2Duo. Launching the browser spikes
100% cpu then timesout. Anybody have better luck on a modern i7?

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blinkingled
On my i7 Win7 laptop with 8G RAM it isn't exactly fast - but it is borderline
acceptable. Core2 should not be drastically different - have you tried
increasing the default RAMSIZE from 96Mb to say 256Mb?

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junkbit
Yes I did 1024 to simulate the tablets. I'm going to try switching from
openjdk-6 to sun.

EDIT: still no better. sun-java6-jdk is in the Ubuntu partner repo for
maverick now though

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jamie
Slow is being charitable. It's molasses.

This is what the docs say:

About emulator performance

Because the Android emulator must simulate the ARM instruction set
architecture on your computer and the WXGA screen is significantly larger than
what the emulator normally handles, emulator performance is much slower than
usual.

In particular, initializing the emulator can be slow and can take several
minutes, depending on your hardware. When the emulator is booting there is
limited user feedback, so please be patient and continue waiting until you see
the home screen appear.

We're working hard to resolve the performance issues in the emulator and it
will improve in future releases. In the meantime, we wanted to give developers
access to new APIs and an basic test environment as early as possible.

Keeping in mind that performance on the emulator does not reflect the speed or
performance of apps on actual devices running Android 3.0, developing and
testing on the emulator is still an important tool in evaluating your
application's appearance and functionality on the new platform.

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callahad
I'm stuck in 90° rotated mode :(

