Android 3.0 Honeycomb Details Released

Google has gone and released a preview of the official Android 3.0 SDK. This will allow developers to not only test their applications with the upcoming tablet OS, but it allow them to visually integrate their app with the operating system inheriting the new “Holographic” theme. The Android 3.0 platform contain several new features and a handful of screenshots. Android 3.0 will feature a system bar at the bottom of the screen for global status and notifications and also an action bar at the top of the screen for application control.

System Bar – This will be implemented across system and all apps. This means that you’ll have quick access to notifications, system status and soft navigation buttons on the system bar which will be available at the bottom of your tablet’s screen.

Action Bar –  Users have access to contextual options, navigation, widgets, or other types of content in an Action Bar, displayed at the top of the screen. This action bar will always be present on every app you install on your Android tablet.

Customizable Home screens – Five customizable Home screens give users instant access to all parts of the system from any context. Each screen offers a large grid that maintains spatial arrangement in all orientations. User can manipulate these homescreens by adding widgets, app shortcuts, and wallpapers via visual layout mode.

Recent Apps – Multitasking is a key strength of Android and it is central to the Android 3.0 experience.  To help users to jump from one app context to another as well.

New connectivity options – Built-in support for Media/Photo Transfer Protocol lets users instantly sync media files with a USB-connected camera or desktop computer, without needing to mount a USB mass-storage device. Users can also connect full keyboards over either USB or Bluetooth, for a familiar text-input environment.

Browser – For the first time on the standard Android browser there’s tabs, whilst other improvements taken from Chrome include form auto-fill, syncing with your Chrome bookmarks and an incognito mode for private browsing that doesn’t leave a history.

Google have released a preview SDK on its developers website, and is expected to release the final SDK so developers can publish applications for Android 3.0 users in the coming weeks.