Software creators behind Google’s Android and the next generation of the software Ice Cream Sandwich have advised developers to be prepared for the platform’s imminent launch.
Expected within the next two months, Ice Cream Sandwich will be aimed at functioning on multiple gadgets suited to a variety of screen sizes from the humblest of pocket smartphones up to large-display tablets.
Essentially this will throw tablet-friendly Honeycomb out of the window as a consumer OS, as the rollout of version 4.0 commences and Google’s Scott Main, Lead Tech Writer blogs on behalf of Lead Software Developer Tim Bray, saying “”Early this year, Honeycomb (Android 3.0) launched for tablets. Although Honeycomb remains tablets-only, the upcoming Ice Cream Sandwich (ICS) release will support big screens, small screens and everything in between. This is the way Android will stay from now on: the same version runs on all screen sizes.”
Main continues: “Some Honeycomb apps assume that they’ll run only on a large screen, and have baked that into their designs. This assumption is currently true, but will become false with the arrival of ICS, because Android apps are forward-compatible – an app developed for Honeycomb is compatible with a device running ICS, which could be a tablet, a phone or something else.”
This is an early warning for developers to change their way of thinking when approaching an app design for the new Google mobile OS. If you build it on Honeycomb – will it work on a smartphone and vice-versa?
Google does however provide plenty of handset technical details and words of wisdom for developers on the full article at android-developers.blogspot.com
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