Android 3.2 officially detailed, new features explained

The latest incremental software update to Android Honeycomb, 3.2, has been officially detailed by Google themselves on their Android Developers blog.

“Today we are announcing the Android 3.2 platform, an incremental release that adds several new capabilities for users and developers. The new platform includes API changes and the API level is 13” reads the blog post.

One of the main improvements in Honeycomb 3.2 is compatibility – Google’s Android team have been working hard to ensure that this new operating system works perfectly across the board for Android tablets. That means 7, 9.4 and 10.1 inch models and anything else manufacturers might want to create, such as the dual-screened Sony S2.

Compatibility zoom for fixed-size apps is another improvement, and one that we wrote about just last week. This new feature will help tablet users view apps that weren’t designed with tablets in mind, on larger screened tablet devices. Android already gives you the ability to stretch an app full screen but this option lets you zoom in on an app and scale the pixels to your screen size, meaning a better picture quality.

Media Sync from SD Card is a new feature that will let you load media files directly from an inserted SD or MicroSD memory card using apps on your tablet. For example, you’ll be able to open an mp3 file stored on your inserted memory card using the native Music app. This will bring better media functionality to users of tablets such as the Motorola Xoom and Asus Eee Pad Transformer, which have Micro SD Card slots.

Android app developers will also get a new SDK (Software Developers Kit) to help them build apps for the new Android Honeycomb 3.2 software. There will also be a new extended screen support API (Application Programming Interface) to help developers create apps to work better with Android tablets of all sizes.

Android Honeycomb 3.2 updates are already coming to Motorola Xoom tablets (Wi-Fi only versions), so if you’ve got one check the update feature on your tablet!

Source: Android Developers Blog