Google showed the new Android 3.0 Honeycomb on the Motorola Xoom at a special event today. Honeycomb is designed for tables with improvements, including hardware accelerated graphics, rendering support for multicore processors, a more intuitive user experience, and support for in-app purchases. Google also announced a news Android Market website that allows Android phone and tablet owners to browse, buy and download apps. The new web-based Android Market is live now.
Here are some of the top new features of Android 3.0 Honeycomb:
- Stablized video chat - Android Honeycomb 3 stabilized video chat using Google contact.
- Camera upgrades - has a new wheel-style interface more like digital cameras offer.
- Simpler notifications - notifications pop-up in the lower left hand corner and then minimize when you ignore them.
- Multitouch drag and drop controls - in Gmail you can drag and drop messages, to move and labled them. There is a new tablet Gmail app for better tablet viewing.
- Currency conversions for in-app purchases - prices can be automatically converted to the correct currency with in app purchases.
- New YouTube app
- there is carousel of videos that can be swiped to show more
thumbnails of the videos. Tap the thumbnail and the video will play with
a choice of video quality. - Android app compatibility - previous version of Android apps will work in Honeycomb. Apps native to Honeycomb can be developed.
TouchType showed the SwiftKey typing app with a holographic keyboard and a Fluency Predicton engine.
QuickOffice for Android that allows users to view and edit Microsoft Word, Excel & PowerPoint files, showed a brand new user interface, which takes advantage of the larger tablet screen size, including the option to connect to a larger screen through HDMI. This enables professionals to efficiently manage all of their materials via a multi-pane document view, making editing documents on-the-go easier and more efficient.