Hands on: Android 3.0 (Honeycomb) review
With the tablet edition due out on loads of devices soon, we take a look at its new features
Email has also had a big improvement. The standard email app for POP3, IMAP and Exchange accounts now has multiple panels. Opening it up gives you a list of folders, then a list of messages; hitting an email opens up that mail in a new panel. The list of folders disappears at this point (press the back button to get it back), but you’re left with a list of messages instead. Google has updated the Gmail app to work in a similar way, making more use of the larger screen on tablet.
It really seems to work. Tiny interfaces are fine for smartphones, but when you’ve got acres more space to play with it makes sense to use them.
Other developers are free to make Android 3.0 apps only, just as Apple developers can make iPad-only apps. The only question is how quickly Android 3.0 apps will be ready.
Using an emulator for Android isn’t ideal, as you don’t get a feel for how responsive the OS really is. That said, having played with the OS for a bit now, we’re quite taken with it. It seems to address the big issues with current Android phones, which are to be expected when you basically blow-up a smartphone OS on to a big screen, and turns Google’s OS into a real competitor to the iPad.