It was announced just days ago at the Google I/O that Google’s tablet specific operating system Honeycomb will be upgraded to version 3.1 which packs many new features with it. The update has already started to roll out for all the Verizon Motorola Xoom users. Whats new with the new version? To start with, there have been some UI tweaks and the widgets can now be stretched horizontally and vertically, the task switcher has also been updated to support scrolling, USB host support has also been added, let’s look at other new features and modifications after the break.
Android 3.1 now supports connectivity of various USB accessories, devices like keyboard, mouse, game controllers, etc . Users can now attach external keyboards, joysticks gamepads to any Honeycomb laden device with USB Host facility. We saw a demo of the Xbox controller attached to the tablet at the conference where a game called cordy was being played. Users can connect play station 3 controllers, gamepads and other game controllers through USB or Bluetooth HID. This feature is a boon for all the tablets which sport a USB port like the Acer Iconia A500.
New Wi-Fi networking tweaks have been added, the high-performance Wi-Fi lock lets the applications maintain high performance connection even when the screen is off. This mainly comes in to play when you are playing music from the cloud or downloading a huge game data. User can also configure the HTTP proxy for the Wi-Fi access point, you can also backup and restore the IP and proxy settings.
The standard applications like the browser, gallery have also undergone some changes. Users can now save web pages for offline viewing, the browser also adds embedded playback of HTML 5 video on web pages. Plugin support has been added which uses the hardware accelerated rendering. The Gallery application now supports picture transfer protocol which will allow users to connect their cameras to the tablet via USB and transfer pictures very easily. Also a new Movie app is included with the 3.1 update which will let the users browse the movies which are available for rent and also buy them or rent them.
New Features For Developers:
Many new APIs have been added for the developers to play with, to create a greater user experience. Also there are some performance tweaks which developers can use to make the apps better, lets look at these new features after the break.
Open Accessory API has been added, which as the name suggests will integrate the hardware accessories with the applications running on the OS. A demo of this was shown at the I/O where a person was playing a game which depended on the person doing his daily exercises. The developers can use this API for making applications which can interact with various range of hardware.
Media Transfer Protocol API has also been added, which lets the developers make apps which can interact with the cameras or any other PTP devices which is attached to the tablet through USB.
Android 3.1 includes performance optimizations which makes the apps faster and more responsive. LRU cache class has been added, this class will help maintain a memory footprint of the cached data. A new graphics method has also been added which provides a performance boost which is useful for the applications that use the ARG_8888 bitmaps.
Another big news is that Android 3.1 will also be coming on the Google TV , which will be a much needed upgrade for the Google TV users, Google TV update will also have the Android market on it.
These are some of the tweaks made by Google in the Android 3.1 update. Well some of these added features are major like the USB host which brings out a whole new area for the developers to work with. The 3.1 update will be coming for the Verizon Motorola Xoom first, it is being rolled out right now. We will soon be getting the 3.1 update for our Xoom , so stay tuned for more information about this update.
