Android 3.0 Honeycomb demo video shows off iOS and iPad’s biggest competitor
Android 3.0 Honeycomb is Google’s upcoming version of Android for tablet devices, aimed to compete directly with Apple’s iOS and iPad.
This trailer video shows off the Android 3.0 lockscreen, parts of the main ‘desktop’ interface, a virtual desktop-like GUI, gestures, books, gmail, YouTube, Google Talk and video chat, 3D Google Maps, and more. I think the UI actually looks pretty nice, although it’s obviously a huge departure from Android on a smartphone let alone iOS on an iPad.
Here’s the video below:
It’s hard to form an opinion from just a demo video, but the interface and what it’s capable of looks a lot more complex than what Apple currently has with iOS. Whether complexity on a tablet is a good or bad thing remains to be seen.
If you want to get your hands on existing versions of Android, you can run Android in a virtual machine using an Android 1.7 image and VirtualBox, they’re both free downloads. If you’re extra gutsy, you can dual boot Android and iOS on an iPhone 3G but it does require a jailbreak to work.
Looks like they are taking some design cues from Windows Phone 7 and providing a Home Screen with real information, rather than a big list of applications.
It’s hard to be impressed with a promotional video though. I’ve seen more than a few that never make it to reality.